March 8 is International Women’s Day. As a woman-owned company, we would love to pay our respects to females in the medical industry — doctors, nurses, and everyone in between — who helped make this world what it is today. These women are some of the most influential in history. It’s our honor to highlight them in this blog today.
Elizabeth Blackwell (1821-1910)
British-born Elizabeth Blackwell is best known as the first woman to earn a medical degree in the US. The road there wasn’t easier to her. She was accepted into Geneva Medical College in 1847 and was faced with hostility from students. She did eventually gain their respect and graduated first in her class in 1849.
She, her sister, Dr. Emily Blackwell, and Maria Zakrzewska opened the New York Infirmary for Women and Children in 1857. Notably, her sister was the third female in the country to earn a medical degree.
Her book, Pioneer Work in Opening the Medical Profession to Women, focused on the differences in how women would treat their patients compared to men. She inspired countless women and was an advocate for them all.
Florence Nightingale (1820-1910)
Florence Nightingale was a nurse who was born in a time of peace into a wealthy family. It was expected of her to become a wife and mother, but she had other plans. Instead, she advocated for the sick and poor.
She worked as a nurse in England. She and her team of nurses worked to better the unsanitary hospital conditions in England, which reduced the mortality rate. Her actions sparked worldwide health care reform. In short, she helped plan hospitals and quickly became a renowned statistician and epidemiologist.
In 1860, she established St. Thomas’ Hospital and Nightingale Training School for Nurses. Because of this, she is best known as the founder of the modern nursing program.
On top of all of that, she invented a new form of the pie chart!
Marie Curie (1867-1934)
There is possibly no woman more famous than Marie Curie. Polish mathematician and scientist Marie Curie collaborated with her husband, Pierre, to discover two chemical elements in the periodic table: polonium and radium. She had to fight to make her discoveries though.
As a woman, Curie wasn’t allowed to study at the University of Warsaw. She instead studied at a clandestine university where she studied math, chemistry, and physics.
Her extensive work looking at the relationship between heavy elements and radioactivity propelled medicine into the modern age. Why? Because Marie Curie is the inventor of the X-Ray machine, and she used them to save countless lives during World War II. Together, her and her daughter Irene brought mobile X-Ray machines and radiology units to the front line, cementing their name and their invention in history.
Curie earned a Nobel Prize in Physics in 1903, and yet another in Chemistry in 1911. To this day, she is the only woman to be honored twice.
The Curie Institute in Paris, she founded in 1920, is still a major cancer research facility today.
Gertrude Belle Elion (1918-1999)
American chemist Gertrude “Trudy” Belle Ellion is one of the only women on this list who came from a scientific background. She pursued medicine when her grandfather passed away from cancer when she was 15 and dreamt of finding a cure for others.
She became a biochemist and designed treatments that blocked viral infections — most notably leukemia — herpes, and AIDs. She also studied kidney transplants and developed treatments for organ transplant rejection. She did all of this without a medical degree, though she did receive over 20 honorary degrees from various schools.
She did this by understanding how drugs worked and what they targeted, rather than simply relying on trial and error.
Her word earned her a Nobel Prize, which she shared with George H. Hitchins and Sir James Black for innovative methods of rational drug design.
Building The Next Generation of Innovators
Women all over the world are changing the landscape of medicine and science, right down to the public level. Our own owner, Megan Jore, worked as a nurse for nearly a decade in the cardiovascular intensive care unit. She switched to outpatient surgery and the Director of Nursing for a plastic surgery center.
Megan wanted to further her passion and drive. She wanted to focus on preventative care and help everyone life their best life. That’s why she invested into IV Revival and assumed ownership.
In her own right, Megan is an innovator. When IV Revival first started, it was one of the only companies that offered mobile IV hydration services in spas, gyms, and more. When she took over in 2019, the industry was skyrocketing. Through Megan’s leadership, IV Revival remained strong and steady and is one of the top companies in the Valley to bring IVs right to your door.
There isn’t a clinic or a waiting room — everything is 100% mobile because that is the epicenter of health — mobility and the comfort of patients. That’s why we wanted to honor Megan on this list as well. She continues to pave the way forward so everyone can feel their best and be prepared for the day, no matter what.