Yvonne Sylvain, Haiti's first female doctor, passed away 37 years ago
Thirty-seven years ago, on October 3, 1989, Yvonne Sylvain, Haiti's very first female doctor, passed away. Born in Port-au-Prince on June 28, 1907, into a family of seven children, she was the daughter of Eugénie Mallebranche and the diplomat and writer Georges Sylvain, an opponent of the American occupation of Haiti. Initially trained at the École normale d'institutrices, she was the first woman admitted to the School of Medicine at the State University of Haiti, where she earned her degree in 1940 before specializing in obstetrics and gynecology at Columbia University in New York.
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By NAGO News
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A Pioneer in Medicine and Public Health
Returning to the country after training in epidural anesthesia in New York, Yvonne Sylvain introduced this technique to national maternity wards in 1947. As a specialist physician at the General Hospital in Port-au-Prince, she began tackling syphilis in the 1930s, followed by yaws, tuberculosis, and malaria. In 1941, she published a study on infant mortality. She also campaigned for cervical cancer screening via Pap smears, as well as for access to X-rays and radiotherapy, while remaining involved with the Haitian League Against Cancer and serving as vice-president of the Haitian Foundation for Health and Education at the Frères hospital until her death.
Activism, Art, and International Engagement
A suffragette and activist with the Women's Social Action League, Yvonne Sylvain wrote public health articles for the newspaper La Voix des Femmes. Also a sculptor, actress, and painter, and a student of Normil Charles, she exhibited more than thirty paintings in 1932. Forced into exile under the Duvalier dictatorship, she worked for thirteen years as a delegate for the World Health Organization in Africa, notably in Senegal, and practiced as a clinician in Costa Rica. The Haitian Medical Association honored her posthumously on April 5, 2005.
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