Feb. 3 marks National Women Physicians Day, a day to celebrate and honor the many women doctors in the country. It falls on the birthday of the first woman to earn a medical degree in the U.S. — Elizabeth Blackwell.
This year marks Blackwell’s 200th birth anniversary and it is just the fourth National Women Physicians Day. As the first woman to earn a medical degree from an American school, Blackwell did face a lot of rejection in her time. According to the University of Wisconsin-Madison (UW), her applications were rejected by 29 colleges simply because she was a woman.