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WOMEN IN
MEDICINE

FIGHTING

ON

TWO

FRONTS

By Nancy Semin, Texas Medical Association

Nov. 18 will mark the centennial of

when the armaments of World War I
at last fell silent. An armistice had been

declared, and the fighting that claimed

more than 32 million lives had finally
come to an end. May Agness Hopkins, MD.

B reaking the war down by numbers can sometimes blunt the ogy scholarship helped pay her tuition. She stayed busy in school,
She enrolled at The University of Texas at Austin, where a zool-
human scale of courage and sacrifice. Still, about 4 million
Americans served in World War I. Of those, about 13,000
the Zeta Tau Alpha sorority before graduating with a bachelor’s de-
were women, and fewer than 100 of them were physicians. captaining the women’s basketball team and serving as president of
gree in science in 1906.
Only one of those doctors was from Texas: Next was medical school at The University of Texas Medical De-
May Agness Hopkins, MD.
partment, now The University of Texas Medical Branch at Galve-
Born on Aug. 18, 1883, Dr. Hopkins grew up in Austin. Her fa- ston. In the early 20th century, it was acceptable for middle- and
ther Eugene was a bookkeeper for a coal company but died in an
upper-class women to attend college, but obtaining a professional
accident in 1893 at only 34 years old. To support her family, the degree beyond that was something else entirely. Almost certainly
widowed Martha Hopkins found work as a laundress at the State
Dr. Hopkins faced prejudice for her efforts, but she graduated in
Lunatic Asylum. 1911 as the only female in her class.
Out of these experiences, Dr. Hopkins learned to be resourceful
Dr. Hopkins then moved to Dallas to establish her pediatric prac-
and self-reliant.

22 San Antonio Medicine • November 2018