Women's History Month: Margaret Chung
Margaret Chung was the first Chinese-American woman to become a physician in the US and founded one of the first western medical clinics in San Francisco’s Chinatown.
Chung was born to a devout Christian family in California in 1889 and was the eldest of her 11 siblings, whom she helped raise. As a child, she dreamt of one day becoming a medical missionary to China which motivated her as she worked her way through college and medical school at the University of Southern California.
After graduating with her medical degree in 1916, Chung applied to be a medical missionary but was rejected by the missionary board because of her race. After being denied from many residencies and internships, Chung moved to Chicago to work as a surgical nurse. She worked her way up from nurse, to intern, to resident, to finally an emergency surgeon, which was almost unheard of for women at the time.
In 1919, Chung returned to California after accepting a position as surgeon at Santa Fe Railroad Hospital, where she went on to treat victims of industrial accidents. In 1922, she helped establish the first Western hospital in San Francisco’s Chinatown and led its OB/GYN and pediatrics unit, where she treated the local Chinese-American community along with various celebrities.
In the late 1930s, Chung began treating, and feeding, Navy reserve pilots, and when Japan invaded in 1937, she was secretly assigned to recruit pilots for the 1st American Volunteer Group. This recruitment effort led to her establishing a network of thousands of men in the military by the end of WWII, who lovingly referred to her as “Mom Chung.”
During this. time, Chung pressed for the inclusion of women in the United States military. She pushed for legislation to create the WAVES (Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service), a reserve corps for women in the Navy. Although she succeeded in getting WAVES established in 1942, she was not properly credited with its creation and was repeatedly rejected from joining the service because of her race and suspected sexuality as a gay woman.
Ten years after WWII, Chung retired from medical practice and lived in a house her “adopted sons” purchased for her. She died from cancer on January 5, 1959, at the age of 69.
Sources:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret_Chung
https://www.nps.gov/people/dr-margaret-mom-chung.htm
https://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/first-american-born-chinese-woman-doctor-ysk233/14464/