Surgeon. Social Reformer. As a teacher in rural Ontario in the 1890s, she began saving money for tuition at Kingston’s Ontario Medical College for Women. She graduated in 1909, but no Toronto hospital would accept female interns, so she was forced to go to Philadelphia. When Smillie returned to Toronto in 1911 she was one of the first women in Canada to perform surgery, albeit in a private home because of the difficulty in finding a hospital that would sponsor her. With fellow female doctors such as Dr. Augusta Stowe-Gullen and Dr. Minerva Ellen Reid, she helped establish Women’s College Hospital and the Federation of Medical Women of Canada. She married her childhood sweetheart when she was 70 years old, stating at the time, "I first met the man I was to marry many years later, in 1898 while I was teaching. At that time, I was planning for medicine, not marriage, and didn't think I could have both." She died in a nursing home at the age of 103.
Surgeon. Social Reformer. As a teacher in rural Ontario in the 1890s, she began saving money for tuition at Kingston’s Ontario Medical College for Women. She graduated in 1909, but no Toronto hospital would accept female interns, so she was forced to go to Philadelphia. When Smillie returned to Toronto in 1911 she was one of the first women in Canada to perform surgery, albeit in a private home because of the difficulty in finding a hospital that would sponsor her. With fellow female doctors such as Dr. Augusta Stowe-Gullen and Dr. Minerva Ellen Reid, she helped establish Women’s College Hospital and the Federation of Medical Women of Canada. She married her childhood sweetheart when she was 70 years old, stating at the time, "I first met the man I was to marry many years later, in 1898 while I was teaching. At that time, I was planning for medicine, not marriage, and didn't think I could have both." She died in a nursing home at the age of 103.
Bio by: Patrick R
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