Marie K. Formad | |
---|---|
Born | 1860 Russia |
Died | February 21, 1944 Philadelphia |
Occupation | Physician |
Marie K. Formad (1860 – February 21, 1944) was a Russian Empire-born American physician based in Philadelphia.
Formad was born in Russia. She moved to the United States in 1883.[1] Her older brother (sometimes mistakenly referred to as her father) Henry F. Formad was a pathology professor on the faculty at the University of Pennsylvania, and served as Coroner's Physician in Philadelphia.[2] Another brother, Robert Julius Formad, was also a pathologist, an expert on veterinary oncology.[3]
Marie Formad graduated from the Woman's Medical College of Pennsylvania in 1886,[4] with a thesis titled "Some Notes on Criminal Abortion".[2]
Formad was elected to the post of vaccine physician for Philadelphia's Eleventh District in 1887.[5] She worked for 52 years at Woman's Hospital of Philadelphia, as a teaching surgeon, gynecologist, and pathologist.[6][7][8] She was the first woman member of the Obstetrical Society of Philadelphia.[9] With Calista V. Luther and two other women doctors, she ran an evening dispensary, the Medical Aid Society for Self-Supporting Women, to treat working women at a more convenient time than other clinics.[10] She retired in 1938.[4]
During World War I, Formad accepted a commission as a surgeon in the French army in 1917.[11] She served fourteen months, from January 1918 to March 1919, in a Women's Overseas Hospital (WOH) unit in France.[12][13] She directed and performed surgery a 125-bed refugee hospital at Labouheyre,[14] supported by the National Woman Suffrage Association,[15] working alongside doctors Laura E. Hunt[16] and Mabel Seagrave.[17] The hospital grew under Formad's direction, and served about 10,000 refugees during its existence;[18] two of the American nurses at Labouheyre, Winifred Warder and Eva Emmons, died from influenza there.[19] After the armistice, Formad went to Nancy to work as a surgeon caring for repatriating French civilians.[20][21][22] She received the Medaille d'honneur from the French government for her wartime service.[23]
Marie Formad cared for her older brother Henry in his last months; he died in 1892.[24][25] She died in 1944, aged 83 years, in Philadelphia.[4] She left her estate mainly to her two nieces, Marie and Charlotte.[26]