City Of Syracuse: Syracuse #BlackStories

Press release from the City of Syracuse:

2022-02-01

Sarah Marinda Loguen Fraser witnessed a traumatic event when she was 23 and it would shape her contributions to the world of medicine forever. The eldest of her siblings after both parents passed, and the daughter of abolitionists, Sarah was accustomed to great responsibility. When she witnessed a boy injured in an accident and saw the ineffective response of onlookers, she vowed to become a doctor and help others.

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Sarah was admitted to Syracuse University School of Medicine, currently known as State University of New York Upstate Medical University, that same year after months of apprenticeship with their family physician. She became the first woman to earn a medical degree from Syracuse University, the fourth African-American woman to become a licensed physician in the United States, and when she moved to the Dominican Republic became the first licensed woman to practice medicine there.

Her 1873 enrollment in medical school was celebrated by the local community but the lives she saved, the midwives she taught, the care she provided in Syracuse and the Dominican Republic is still celebrated today, more than 100 years after her practice began.

This press release was produced by the City of Syracuse. The views expressed here are the author’s own.