Celebrate All Scientists: Dr. Susan La Flesche Picotte
November is Native American Heritage Month, and LSC celebrates Dr. Susan La Flesche Picotte, the first Native American woman MD.
Dr. Susan La Flesche Picotte was the first Native American woman to receive a medical degree. When she was a child, she witnessed another Native American woman die because of the lack of access to doctors. La Flesche Picotte pursued a medical degree to ensure that people who lived on the Omaha Reservation would receive care.
Susan La Flesche Picotte was born on the Omaha Reservation in northeastern Nebraska to Chief Joseph La Flesche and Mary Gale, also known as Iron Eyes and One Woman. Susan was the youngest of four girls. Chief La Flesche strongly encouraged his people to get an education and be involved in the white reform groups.
After Susan was home-schooled for several years, she went to New Jersey to attend the Elizabeth Institute for Young Ladies. She studied there until she was 17 and then returned home to teach at the Quaker Mission School for two years on the Reservation where she was born. During those two years, she helped care for Alice Fletcher, an ethnologist, who pushed her to go back to the East Coast to pursue a medical degree.
On the East Coast, she enrolled at the Hampton Institute which was one of the first and best schools for higher education for non-white students. While there, she was encouraged to apply to the Woman’s Medical College of Pennsylvania. Alice Fletcher was able to help Susan secure a scholarship to attend. She graduated in 1889 as valedictorian of her class, then returned to Omaha to care for the people at the government boarding school, Omaha Agency Indian School.
In 1894, Susan married Henry Picotte. They moved to Bancroft, Nebraska where she set up a private practice for patients of multiple ethnicities. While working, she took care of her ill husband and raised two children. In 1913, she opened a hospital in Walthill, Nebraska, a reservation town. Today, that hospital is home to a museum dedicated to Dr. Susan La Flesche Picotte’s work and the history of both the Omaha and Winnebago tribes.
This post was written by Olivia Woodruff, an Early Childhood STEM Educator at LSC. She studied Environmental Policy, Institutions, and Behavior in college. Her favorite exhibit at Liberty Science Center is The Science Behind Pixar.
