On 22 June 1862, Zakrzewska founded the New England Hospital for Women and Children in Boston, the first women-run hospital in Boston and a major training ground for women in medicine.
On 22 June 1862, Maria Elizabeth Zakrzewska founded the New England Hospital for Women and Children in Boston. Biographical and institutional sources describe it as the first hospital in Boston and the second in the United States to be run by women physicians and surgeons. The date marks one of the most important barrier-breaking events in American medical history because it created a lasting institution where women could obtain clinical training and patients could receive care from women doctors.
The hospital addressed two linked exclusions of the era: women were being shut out of formal medical practice, and hospitals controlled by men were not prepared to train them. Zakrzewska’s response was practical and strategic. She built an institution that combined treatment with education, making clinical work itself part of the pathway for women physicians and nurses. That model had far-reaching influence, especially in Boston, where the hospital later became associated with the opening of the first professional nursing school in the United States. The 1862 founding stands as a milestone in the history of women’s professional self-determination, showing how women physicians created their own institutions when mainstream medicine refused them entry.