Michele Rattigan Medical College Of Pennsylvania


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Michele Rattigan Medical College Of Pennsylvania

Michele Rattigan Medical College Of Pennsylvania

A career in medicine is something young women may choose easily today. They train at universities and medical colleges without a second thought. But in Jennie Trout’s time, wanting to be a doctor was a daunting prospect. Not impossible, but surely complicated.

One of the few medical post-secondary schools open to women, the University of Toronto’s School of Medicine accepted females into their program. Jennie Kidd Trout enrolled in 1871, ready to learn. She attended classes with another female student who would become a suffragist powerhouse, Emily Howard Stowe. (Emily had already earned a medical degree in New York. She did not pass Ontario licencing exams until 1880, thus practicing unlicenced for several years.) Society, noted the Queen’s University website, had the general impression that women should not attend university, that “the delicate grace and beauty of women’s character” should not be subjected to “the rude influences, the bitterness and strife of the world.” Jennie and Emily were subjected to humiliations by male classmates and professors alike – lewd jokes by instructors and practical jokes played by the male students made their studies frustratingly difficult.

Jennie Trout Ready for a Medical Career

Jennie Kidd Trout was not a young, shy woman blushing with embarrassment in lectures. She was a mature, married woman. Born on April 21, 1841 as Jennie Kidd Gowanlock in Kelso, Scotland, her family moved to Canada in 1847, settling in southern Ontario near Stratford. After graduation from Normal School, Jennie trained as a teacher then taught for four years. Married to Edward Trout, publisher of the respected business journal, Monetary Times, Jennie became ill with “nervous disorders” shortly after marriage, and was nearly incapacitated for six years. According to her family history on Rootsweb, it was during her illness that practicing medicine became Jennie's goal.