Editor’s Note: The following is the second in a new series of articles about the history of Massachusetts General Hospital from our intern, Andrew Glyman. Andrew is digging into the back archives of the hospital’s 200+ year history to find stories that have helped to shape the hospital’s past, present and future.

Massachusetts General Hospital played a small but pivotal role in the education of Susan Dimock, MD, a pioneering female doctor whose early struggles helped women physicians gain equal recognition in the male-dominated Massachusetts medical system.  

Dimock and her colleague, Sofia Jex-Blake, MD, were the first two women to receive permission to study medicine at Mass General in the 1860s.

The decision by the hospital was not without limitations and controversy at the time—and the training ended prematurely after only eight months. Dimock then traveled overseas to Switzerland to complete her medical training at the University of Zurich, where men and women were given equal opportunity to learn.

When she returned to Massachusetts, she took a three-year job as resident physician at the New England Hospital for Women and Children in Boston, where she made a powerful impression as a talented and compassionate clinician and surgeon.

Tragically, her promising career was cut short at the age of 28, when she died in a shipwreck off the coast of England during a return trip to visit friends from Europe.

Dimock left a legacy of compassion and medical excellence, and her quest to gain equal recognition as a female doctor helped to pave the way for women physicians to be recognized by the Massachusetts Medical Society. 

Early Life

Dimock was born in North Carolina on April 24, 1847. As a young student, she excelled in her studies, especially grammar and arithmetic, and enjoyed reading.

At the age of 13, she became interested in medicine after reading a book called Materia Medica in Latin. After that, she sought out and read any medical book she could find, no matter how dry.

The death of Dimock’s father in 1864, combined with the loss of much of the family’s property during the Civil War, prompted Dimock and her mother to move to Sterling, Massachusetts, where they had relatives.

In Sterling, Dimock met Bessie Greene, a highly accomplished young girl who was also fond of deep and serious study. Greene appreciated the medical interests of her new friend and helped her find new medical books to read.

Medical Education and the Struggle for Equality

In 1866, Greene helped Dimock become a student at the New England Hospital for Women and Children in Boston. The hospital, which would later be renamed the Dimock center, was then in its fourth year of existence and one of the few places where women could practice medicine in the state.

HMS denied her admission, however.

Dimock was an eager student and gladly took on the assignments of her fellow students to gain more experience, but she had larger aspirations and applied to Harvard Medical School (HMS) in 1867, writing in her application that she wished to be held to the same standards as the male students (HMS was exclusively male at the time).  

Undeterred, Dimock asked the leadership of Mass General if she could train at the hospital, and she was accepted along with Dr. Jex-Blake.

The appearance of Dimock and Jex-Blake at Mass General was chronicled in the 1922 book, History of the Massachusetts General Hospital Training School for Nurses:

“In 1867 an innovation, which caused quite a little flurry, was the admission of two women medical students to the Clinics at the Hospital. And though they were championed by some of the hospital visiting staff, they were really allowed this privilege under protest, and were under many restrictions, and were only allowed to visit in certain wards.”

Dimock and Jex-Blake’s training came to an end after eight months, due to pressure on the hospital from the Massachusetts Medical Society, whose members had recently voted 49-7 against admitting female medical students to state medical schools or hospitals.

In order to practice medicine at the time, you had to be a member of the Massachusetts Medical Society. Women in Massachusetts had been fighting for the right to practice medicine since 1852, but the Society continued to refuse women membership long after they had been allowed to practice in other states.

Though their training at Mass General was cut short, the two women came away with glowing letters of recommendation from doctors at the hospital (who were also professors at Harvard Medical School). They once again applied for admission to HMS, and were once again denied entry.

Dimock then decided to pursue her medical education at the University of Zurich, where male and female students were treated equally. She thrived in Zurich, finishing medical school in four years when most students at the time took five.

Return to Boston

When she returned to the United States in 1872 at the age of 25, she was appointed for a three-year stint as resident physician of the New England Hospital for Women and Children.

In this new role, Dimock earned high praise for her leadership, clinical and surgical skills, and compassion.

Said one colleague, “I have never known a physician, man or woman, whose diagnosis and judgment, in regard to a case, I valued more than I did hers. It is a mistake to consider her pre-eminently as a surgeon; it was her reasoning powers which gave her such marked superiority.”

A Tragic Fate

In the spring of 1875, three years after her return from Europe and prior to signing on for another three-year stint at Women and Children’s Hospital, Dimock made plans to travel to Europe to reconnect with old friends.

Along with Bessie Greene and Caroline Crane, a volunteer nurse at the hospital, Dimock booked passage to England on the SS Schiller.

Tragically, as the ship approached the coast of England, the captain and crew could not locate the lighthouse in heavy fog and crashed into the granite cliffs off the Isles of Scilly (about 28 miles off the coast of Cornwall).

Dimock, Greene and Crane were among the 335 passengers and crew members who died in the wreck.

When last seen, Dimock was kneeling and praying out loud in front of a group of passengers when a great wave swept over the boat. When her body was recovered by residents of the island after the wreck, her face had such a peaceful expression on it that it reportedly moved all those who saw her.

A Lasting Legacy

According to Susan Wilson, a Boston-based historian and author, “[Dimock’s] early death let to an outpouring of sympathy from both the female and male medical communities, not only in Boston and her hometown of Washington, North Carolina, but throughout the U.S. and Europe as well. Her funeral and subsequent burial at Forest Hills Cemetery were covered by the press and resulted in accolades and condolences from around the world.”

To honor Dimock’s memory, a free bed was endowed at the New England Hospital for Women and Children. “Her friends believe that no other monument could so worthily express their appreciation of her loving service to the poor, suffering women, under her care at the hospital,” according to a newspaper notice published at the time.

In 1882, part of Dimock’s legacy was realized when members of the Massachusetts Medical Society invoked her name to finally convince the society to allow women members.

New England Women and Children’s Hospital was renamed New England Hospital in 1951. In 1969, it was once again renamed as the Dimock Community Health Center in recognition of Dimock’s pioneering work.

A biography of Susan Dimock published shortly after her death offers an eloquent summation of her life and legacy.

“At twenty-eight, no one’s character is fully developed, and the ripening hand of time has not yet perfected one’s powers; and while we rejoice in all that Susan Dimock accomplished in her profession, and all her rich promise, we cannot but feel what a loss the world has sustained, that the rich fruits of long experience and the maturity of such talent it is not given us to see.

“Most truly did she illustrate the words of Dr. Willard Parker, of New York: ‘A doctor is born, not made; and is found, naturally, in both sexes.’”

About the Mass General Research Institute
Research at Massachusetts General Hospital is interwoven through more than 30 different departments, centers and institutes. Our research includes fundamental, lab-based science; clinical trials to test new drugs, devices and diagnostic tools; and community and population-based research to improve health outcomes across populations and eliminate disparities in care.
Support our Research