Kei Okami

Kei Okami
Born(1859-09-11)11 September 1859
Aomori Prefecture, Japan
Died2 September 1941(1941-09-02) (aged 82)
Other namesNishida Keiko, Keiko Okami, Kei Nishida Okami, Kyōko Okami
EducationWomen's Medical College of Pennsylvania, 1889.
OccupationPhysician
Known forThe first Japanese woman to obtain a degree in Western medicine from a Western university

Kei Okami (岡見 京, Okami Kei; 11 September 1859 – 2 September 1941) was a Japanese physician. She was the first Japanese woman to obtain a degree in Western medicine from a Western university (Women's Medical College of Pennsylvania, USA).

Early life

Kei Okami was born as Nishida Keiko[citation needed] in Aomori Prefecture in 1859. She graduated from the Yokohama Kyoritsu Girls' School in 1878 and then taught English at the Sakurai Girls' School. During the Meiji period, educational opportunities for women were expanding but access to higher education and professional careers remained limited, particularly in fields such as medicine. Women's education in Japan developed through a combination of government initiatives, private institutions, and missionary actives which led to establishing schools for girls.

She married an art teacher, Okami Senkichiro, at the age of 25. The couple subsequently traveled to the United States. This move was part of a pattern of Japanese engagement with Western education during the Meiji era when individuals increasingly studied abroad to gain access to professional training that was unavailable in Japan at the time.[citation needed]

Medical training

In America, Kei Okami studied at the Woman's Medical College of Pennsylvania, receiving aid from the Women's Foreign Missionary Society of the Presbyterian Church.[citation needed] At the time, the college was one of the few institutions in the United States offering formal medical education to women and also trained international students who were often excluded from medical education in their home countries.

After four years of study, she graduated in 1889, with Susan La Flesche Picotte, following in the footsteps of Anandi Gopal Joshi who graduated in 1886. Okami thus became the first Japanese woman to obtain a degree in the Western medicine from a Western university. Her education formed a part of broader international movement of women from Asia and other regions who travelled abroad in the nineteenth century to pursue medical training that was unavailable to them domestically.[citation needed]

According to the author Bharadwaj et al women such as Anandi Gopal Joshi pursued medical education abroad under similar conditions, reflecting a wider international movement of women entering Western medical institutions during this period.

Medical career

After returning to Japan, Kei Okami worked at Jikei Hospital (now the Jikei University School of Medicine hospital) at the invitation of Takaki Kanehiro. Some accounts report that she resigned after encountering gender-based restrictions in patient access, including the refusal of high-profile patients to be treated by a female physician.[unreliable source?] She subsequently opened her own clinic, operating out of her home in Akasaka Tameike, Minato. Okami worked primarily in gynecology and also treated patient with tuberculosis, reflecting common public health concerns of the period in Japan.[unreliable source?] Okami is reported to have established a small tuberculosis care facility, sometimes referred to Eisei-En sanitarium.

Later, she closed her private practice and served as the vice-principal of Shoei Girls' school (a predecessor of the Shoei Girls' Junior and Senior High School) which was founded by her brother-in-law Kiyomune where she taught anatomy to nurses in a major hospital.[citation needed] In 1897, she opened a small hospital for women in partnership with a friend, Mrs. True, and also established a school of nursing in the same location. The hospital closed after approximately nine years, due to a limited number of patients, which largely consisted of foreign female missionaries.[citation needed]

Okami later retired due to breast cancer. A devout Christian, she participated in missionary work in Japan and taught anatomy to nurses in one of Japan's major hospitals.

See also

References

  1. 1 2 "Kyōko Okami". Nihon jinmei daijiten+Plus (in Japanese). Kōdansha. Retrieved 7 February 2014.
  2. ↑ 三﨑 裕子 (2008). "明治女医の基礎資料" (PDF). 日本医史学雑誌 (in Japanese). Vol. 54, no. 3. p. 282. Retrieved 2021-06-19.
  3. ↑ Patessio, Mara. Women and Public Life in Early Meiji Japan. University of Michigan Press, U of M Center for Japanese Studies.
  4. ↑ Patessio, Mara (2011). Women and Public Life in Early Meiji Japan: The Development of the Feminist Movement. University of Michigan Press, U of M Center for Japanese Studies. ISBN 978-0-472-90160-9.
  5. 1 2 Hamish Ion (2010). American Missionaries, Christian Oyatoi, and Japan, 1859-73. UBC Press. p. 230. ISBN 978-0-7748-5899-1.
  6. ↑ Peitzman, Steve J. (2000). A New and Untried Course. Rutgers University Press. ISBN 9780813528168.
  7. ↑ JAMA: The Journal of the American Medical Association. American Medical Association. 1889. p. 455.
  8. ↑ "Dr. Kei Okami". Woman's Medical College of Pennsylvania: Photograph Collection. 1850-present. Drexel University. Retrieved 2014-01-26.
  9. ↑ Jalal, Muhammed Jasmin Abdul. "Daughters of Destiny: The Forgotten Sisterhood That Rewrote the History of Medicine".
  10. ↑ Bharadwaj, Dalal, Tan, Agarwal, Javed, Hareesha Rishab, Priyal, Joecelyn Kirani, Trishtha, Mahnoor (2024). "Journey across the world to study medicine: The Anandi Joshi story" (PDF). Journal of Medical Biography. 32 (4): 372–379. doi:10.1177/09677720231190887. PMC 11566070. PMID 37549937.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  11. ↑ Starita, Joe (2016). A warrior of the people : how Susan La Flesche overcame racial and gender inequality to become America's first Indian doctor. New York. p. 156. ISBN 978-1-250-08534-4. OCLC 959372317.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  12. 1 2 "The Graduates - The Triangle". The Triangle. Archived from the original on 2023-01-05. Retrieved 2018-04-09.
  13. 1 2 "Prominent People of Minato City: Keiko Okami". Minato City Administration. Archived from the original on 2016-11-18. Retrieved 2014-01-26.
  14. ↑ Verghese, Danielle. "The Graduates".
  15. ↑ "Women's Foreign Missionary Society of the Presbyterian Church". Woman's Work for Woman and Our Mission Field. IV. Women's Foreign Missionary Societies of the Presbyterian Church: 136, 333. 1889.