Volume 2, No. 3 (Spring 1998) -- Women's History Month Issue

   Susan LaFleche -- First native american physician

Susan LaFlesche was educated at the Hampton Institute and the Women's Medical College in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She was one of the first Native American women physicians in the United States.

Following graduation, she worked as a physician on the Omaha reservation. There she treated large numbers of cases of cholera, dysentery, influenza, tuberculosis and insect born diseases not typically found in the rest of the country.

She became a social activist and often lectured about the conditions on Native American reservations. She especially spoke out against the General Allotment Act which allowed lands to be taken from Native Americans and transferred to others.

As a physician, she successfully combined "modern" medical practice with Native American healing practice and formed a new branch of medicine, one which provides services in a culturally acceptable manner. Her methodology is still used in providing medical services to ethnic populations around the world. Susan LaFlesche died in 1903 at the age of 49.