In today's Mexico, the 21ST century, women constitute more than 40% of medical personnel and more than 80% of nursing within the Secretary of Health. However, in Mexico’s nineteenth century this was very different.
Before 1887 there was not a single woman doctor in the whole country. On August 24, 1887, Matilde Montoya made history and changed forever the course of medicine, when the National School of Medicine presented his professional exam to be recognized as a doctor, in the presence of ladies and gentlemen of elite, professionals of medicine, journalists and the same president of the Republic in those years, Porfirio Díaz.
Matilde Montoya was born on March 14, 1857 in Mexico City. In may 1870 she enrolled in the obstetrics career at the National School of Medicine, but only a year later she abandoned it because of the economic hardships of his family and the death of his father. Since 1871 she had been practicing obstetrics in Morelos, Mexico City, Veracruz and Puebla.
After the difficulties after enrolling in the School of Medicine in Puebla, she decided to apply for registration at the National School of Medicine, where she was accepted in 1882.
Five years later, Matilde Montoya became Mexico's first woman doctor, causing reactions among the society at the time: from those who recognized and applauded her work, and saw in it a beginning for the change of the place of women in society, to those who questioned the validity of their efforts, arguing that it was not "natural" for a woman to be inclined to a profession that did not agree with the inclinations of her sex.
Fortunately, today thousands of women decide to pursue careers related to the health sciences, exercising functions ranging from the clinic and research, through public health, to the design of public policies and decision-making that are vital for the country.
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