Mayo, Sara Tew (1869–1930)

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Mayo, Sara Tew (1869–1930)

American physician. Born Sara Tew Mayo, May 26, 1869, near Vidalia, LA; died Mar 7, 1930, in New Orleans, LA, from angina pectoris; dau. of Emma (Tew) Mayo and George Spencer Mayo; graduate of Woman's Medical College of Pennsylvania, 1898.

One of the 1st practicing female physicians in the American south, founded (with Elizabeth Bass and other women physicians) the South's only all-women-managed hospital, the New Orleans Dispensary for Women and Children (1905, renamed the New Orleans Hospital and Dispensary for Women and Children by 1908, then Sara Mayo Hospital), in large part because of the sexist employment policies apropos of women physicians in New Orleans at the time; served as a president (1st 2 years) and as a treasurer; denied admittance on the basis of gender to the Orleans Parish Medical Society until 1913; served as physician at St. Anna's Asylum; was staff member of Touro Infirmary and Baptist Hospital; maintained extensive private practice throughout career, specializing in surgery, obstetrics, and gynecology; was the 1st medical woman in New Orleans to be awarded the New Orleans Times-Picayune "Loving Cup" for outstanding civic service (1910).

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Mayo, Sara Tew (1869–1930)

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