Dr. Florence Rena Sabin achieved many firsts at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore City and in other medical and science associations throughout her career.
The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, located in Baltimore, Maryland, is the research-intensive medical school of Johns Hopkins University. Founded in 1893, the School of Medicine shares a campus with the Johns Hopkins Hospital and Johns Hopkins Children’s Center, established in 1889. The JHU School of Medicine was co-ed from the beginning because of an early donor’s contingency that required the admittance of female students. Dr. Sabin, the first full professor at the School, went on to affect health law in her home state of Colorado.
Highlights of Dr. Sabin’s career:
1896: Enrolled as 1 of only 14 women at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine.
1902: Earned an anatomy fellowship at Hopkins, becoming the first female faculty member. She was soon promoted to associate professor in 1905
1917: Appointed professor of embryology and histology, the first woman to become a full professor at a medical college.
1921: Named the first female president of the American Association of Anatomists. Meanwhile, she continued her research on the origins of blood, blood vessels, blood cells, the histology of the brain, and the pathology and immunology of tuberculosis at Hopkins.
1925: Because of a desire to focus on her research full time, Sabin left Hopkins and was the first female member of the Rockefeller Institute. In that same year, she was the first woman elected to the National Academy of Sciences and the only female member for the next 20 years.
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