“When I felt rather overcome with my father’s opposition, I said as firmly as I could, that I must have this or something else, that I could not live without some real work.”- Elizabeth Garrett Anderson
Elizabeth Garrett Anderson was the first female doctor to qualify in England, slipping through a loophole which allowed her to take the Apothecaries exam, teaching herself French in order to qualify in Paris- she was still barred from the British Medical Register. Despite this, she still founded the hospital now called Elizabeth Garrett Anderson Hospital.
I’m inspired by her because she gained plenty of opposition, just like many do today, even if the opposition is more ‘subtle’; if she could do it in the 19th century, there’s nothing that I can’t do today. No matter what anyone says or thinks about my place in society, “I could not live without some real work.”
