Co-Ed Medical Education

This year marks the 100-year anniversary of the admission of women to P&S. In 1917, a Barnard College senior, Gulli Lindh, started a campaign to gain admission to P&S. After several meetings with the P&S dean and receipt of an anonymous gift to pay for physical plant changes to accommodate women, Ms. Lindh joined 10 other women who began medical school in the fall.

Dr. Gulli Lindh Muller (she married in her junior year) graduated first in her class in 1921. After training at Presbyterian Hospital she joined the P&S faculty, later resigning to move to Massachusetts for her husband’s new job.

In the years from 1921 to 1941, 175 women graduated from P&S, a third of them graduating with honors (compared with only 13 percent of the men). As of the late 1950s, 85 percent of them were still practicing medicine. Application rates were low, however. On average, 50 women applied each year compared with about 1,000 men. The school limited women to 10 percent of the class. Today, application and enrollment numbers of women at P&S are approximately equal to the numbers of men, and the number of women has often surpassed the number of men enrolled.

Read more about P&S history at http://ps.columbia.edu/250.