Celebrating Women's History Month

During Women's History Month, the UK College of Medicine is highlighting the significant contributions from women in medicine across the Commonwealth of Kentucky.

Jacqueline A. Noonan, MD 

Jacqueline Noonan (cover photo) began her career as a pediatric cardiologist in 1955 with her residency in Cincinnati. Her research work led to her original description on hypoplastic left heart syndrome, which is now known as Noonan Heart Syndrome. Her research has also led her to publish over 70 peer-reviewed scientific articles. She has received many awards for her scientific research and skills as a pediatric cardiologist. From 1964 to today, Dr. Noonan has served as a professor at the University Of Kentucky College Of Medicine, where she was one of the first faculty members.

For almost 20 years, Dr. Noonan chaired the department of pediatrics. Not only is Dr. Noonan’s career highly recognized in the United States, but also abroad. Dr. Noonan has traveled extensively as a visiting professor where she has taught residents as well as evaluated many pediatric programs. During her tenure at the University Of Kentucky College Of Medicine, Dr. Noonan has served on many boards, committees, and editorial boards.

Mary Merritt, RN 

Born and raised on a Berea farm, Merritt graduated from Berea College’s two-year nursing program and finished her training at Freedman’s Hospital in Washington, D.C. Merritt was the first African American to be licensed as a registered nurse in Kentucky. She returned to Kentucky to work as the private nurse for Cassius Clay, the abolitionist politician who donated the land on which Berea College was built. A close friend of Berea College president William Frost and first lady Eleanor, Merritt was invited by a Berea College donor to be the superintendent of the Red Cross Hospital in Louisville. Due to segregation, the hospital was the only place in Kentucky African American nurses could be trained at the time.

The “superintendent, mother, guiding spirit, cook and chief inspiration” of the Red Cross Hospital served in this position for 34 years and was awarded the Mary Mahoney Medal for distinguished service in nursing from the National Association of Colored Graduate Nurses in 1949.

Grace Marilynn James, MD 

In the National Library of Medicine, there is the story of a little-known woman who helped to change the face of medicine in Kentucky. Dr. Grace Marilynn James began her practice of pediatrics in the city of Louisville in 1953 when city hospitals were segregated by law. Despite the obstacles this overt racism created, Dr. James’ brilliance and tenacity could not be overlooked and she became the first African American woman on the faculty at the University of Louisville School Of Medicine. She later became the first African American woman to obtain membership in the Jefferson County Medical Society.

She faced the double jeopardy of convincing the white physicians that she had earned her status in the medical community as a qualified doctor of medicine, and as a woman, she faced critics of black and white male physicians who ridiculed her vision, her outspokenness, and her chosen patients — the poorest children. Dr. James set out to serve the patients other doctors, black and white, were reluctant to serve for economic reasons and partly because of the stigma that came with the fact that many of the children’s mothers were never married. The patients others passed up, she welcomed with no thought ro how they would pay or the fact that they were young, unwed mothers. She spoke publicly about issues well before their time such as the growing infant mortality rate among black babies and the medically underserved black community. She was a tireless activist for preventive care and universal health care.

One of her former patients recalls, “I remember a very young mother showed up at Dr. James office with an infant that was noticeably dirty...during her examination of the child she discovered the mother didn’t know how to bathe her child and had no one to teach her. Right then and there, Dr. James called all of the young moms from the waiting room and held a demonstration of how to properly bathe a baby.” She not only helped many young women become better mothers, but at her own expense, she kept a closet filled with toys, books, diapers, blankets, hats, coats, baby supplies, and especially newborn undershirts. She would give these things away to her patients whenever she discovered the need. She went on to found the West Louisville Health Education Program and headed the Council on Urban Education. Dr. James conducted a series of public lectures where she advocated for young African Americans to become physicians and denounced racism, sexism, and capitalism in the field of medicine.

Eula Hall 

For almost 40 years, Hall was an active community organizer in Eastern Kentucky. She briefly worked in a World War II canning factory in Ontario, N.Y., at the age of fifteen, but was sent back to Kentucky on charges of 'inciting a labor riot' concerned with poor working conditions. Upon returning to the mountains, she moved to Floyd County where she worked as a domestic servant for wealthy families who were boarding mine, oil, and drilling workers. During President Johnson's War on Poverty she joined the VISTA (Volunteers in Service to America) program and later became one of two local Appalachian Volunteers working in the area. She rose to prominence as an activist as a member of the local 979 community group and the Eastern Kentucky Welfare Rights Organization (EKWRO). She created the Mud Creek Water District and served as president of the Kentucky Black Lung Association. In 1973, she established the Mud Creek Clinic in Grethel, Ky.  



Sarah Felt Richardson, MD 

Sarah Felth Richardson graduated from the Rush Medical College in Chicago and practiced medicine in Hart County, Ky., for 41 years. Her outstanding medical career included successfully performing the first recorded surgery for the treatment of breast cancer in the early 1900s. During her tenure, she also introduced flu shots to Hart County in 1915 and spent many years as a local surgeon on the railroad—the first woman to perform this type of work regularly. 

Mary Fitzbuler Waring, MD

Mary R. Fitzbutler was born in Amherstburg, Ontario, and raised in Louisville, Ky., the daughter of William Henry Fitzbutler and Sarah Helen McCurdy Fitzbutler. Both of her parents were physicians; her mother was the first black woman to earn a medical degree in Kentucky, and her father was the first black graduate of the University of Michigan's medical school. Mary R. Fitzbutler studied at the Louisville National Medical College (which her father owned and operated); she graduated from the National Medical College of Chicago in 1923.