Women Medical Pioneers: Nell Ryan

Dr. Nell Ryan was the first woman to graduate from Mississippi’s new four-year School of Medicine.

The new medical school enrolled its first students when the University of Mississippi Medical Center opened in 1955. The first class graduated in 1957. 

A 1950 graduate of Millsaps College, Ryan took her internship in pediatrics at Vanderbilt University Hospital in 1958. She did a rotating internship at the University of Oklahoma Medical Center and completed a pediatrics residency at UMC in 1960.

She completed a postdoctoral fellowship in pediatric cardiology at Oklahoma in 1961 and a residency in pediatric neurology at the Medical Center in 1977.

Ryan joined the Medical Center faculty as an instructor in pediatrics in 1961. In 1964, she became an assistant professor of pediatrics and then became an associate professor of pediatrics in 1969. She also served as an assistant professor of neurology from 1980-1983. 

While at the Medical Center, Ryan served as medical director of the Birth Defects Clinic in the Department of Pediatrics from 1961-1983, director of the Pediatric Outpatient Department from 1964-1975 and medical director of the infant care area from 1980-1983. 

Dr. LouAnn Woodward, associate dean of the School of Medicine, said because of the work of individuals like Ryan, “women physicians have innumerable opportunities for advancement in medicine today.”

“While I did not personally know Dr Nell Ryan, I, like many others, feel eternally grateful for the road she paved. She and other women of that era took the difficult and bold steps into the traditionally male-dominated world of academic medicine,” she said.

“Currently, in the School of Medicine, there are 420 total students, 182 (43.5 percent) of which are young women. I think Dr. Nell Ryan would be proud.”

A Vicksburg native, Ryan left the Medical Center in 1983 to join the faculty at the Louisiana State University Medical Center at Shreveport, where she served as associate professor of neurology and associate professor of pediatrics. She was appointed representative for women in medicine to the Association of American Medical Colleges and director of the Neonatal Comprehensive Care Clinic.

In 1994, she was named professor emeritus of pediatrics at Louisiana State University Medical Center at Shreveport.

Changing the Face of Medicine will be on display from Feb. 28-April 11, 2008, at the Jackson Medical Mall Thad Cochran Center. The exhibition was organized by the National Library of Medicine and the American Library Association with support from the National Library of Medicine, the National Institutes of Health Office of Research on Women’s Health and the American Medical Women’s Association. For more information about the Rowland Medical Library’s schedule of programs for the exhibition, call 4-1290.

 —Patrice Sawyer Guilfoyle (10-26-07)

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