OHSU Golden Circle Alumni

On Saturday, May 9 I was honored to present a talk on Esther Lovejoy to the OHSU Golden Circle Alumni. Members received their M.D.s from the University of Oregon Medical School (now OHSU) in 1959 or earlier -- a fifty year group. Esther Lovejoy, their colleague, is what we might term a member of the Centennial Circle Alumni. She graduated 115 years ago last month in April 1894, the second woman to graduate from UOM and the first woman to practice. She would have graduated in 1893 but had to take off a year to work in a department store to make enough money to finish school.

I was pleased to meet a retired physician who was the recipient of one of the Lovejoy scholarships. Esther Lovejoy established the scholarship in memory of her son Freddie who died in 1908 and her first husband Emil who died in 1911. Because she had had to take off a year to work to pay for her own education, and because at the time of her graduation with honors women were not considered for internships, she endowed the scholarship to assist medical students with the costs of education and she stipulated that 1/3 of the scholarships go to women students.

Thank you Golden Circle Alumni for your warm reception and your interesting questions about Esther Lovejoy.