<Begin Segment 29>

MA: So where was the school in Philadelphia? Was it sort of in the middle of the city?

KB: It was out in the suburbs, very beautiful area.

MA: What's the area called?

KB: What was that called? Oh, dear.

MA: Oh, that's okay.

KB: I can't think of it. But there were some rich families living in that area, there were some mansions. And I don't know why that school was located in that particular place, but it was in a nice residential area, away from downtown Philadelphia.

MA: And what, I mean, was the Woman's Medical School, was it the only one in the country that, do you know, that was only a women's school?

KB: I think it was the only one in the country.

MA: And do you know at all about the history of this, of the medical school and how it was started?

KB: Yes, I think, I haven't reviewed it lately, but there is, the history has been quite extensively written out because it was the only women's medical school for quite a while. It started way back in the 1800s, and it was started as a school for women. And eventually it did become co-educational. It started to take men after we graduated, several, actually, several years after we graduated because I think financially they couldn't get along just having women students, they needed more, more than women students. So it became co-educational, and then it had more financial problems, and combined with another medical school in Philadelphia called Hahneman, and still had financial problems. [Laughs] As far as I know, it was all finances, and now it's part of... what is it... I can never remember this. I'm sorry.

MA: Oh, that's okay.

KB: It's part of a big, big school in Philadelphia.

MA: So there's quite a history, then, being started in the 1800s.

KB: Right, yeah. So it's, I feel it's no -- it's Drexel University, it's part of Drexel University, which is a huge school in Philadelphia. And I sort of feel that's no longer my school, which I think maybe is not right, but it was, it was, like my class was thirty-five students, and now they have two hundred, three hundred students (in one class) in the medical school, so it's quite different.

MA: What were the women like that you were in school with?

KB: They came from all over. There were some older people, I remember one student was like in her fifties, and this was very unusual for a medical school to accept someone that age. She had been involved in the medical field, actually, I think she did very well. She was maybe a year or two ahead of me. My classmates, some of them had been, I remember one was a physical therapist who wanted to become a doctor, so she was older. And then there were some just out of school. So it was quite a variety of students.

MA: And people came from all over the country?

KB: From all over the United States. Mostly they were from the East Coast, I would say, but they, there were a number from California, some from Washington.

MA: Were there other Nisei students there?

KB: Yes, uh-huh. Dr. Inouye, she was my classmate. Do you know her?

MA: We did an interview with her, a few years ago, Dr. Ruby.

KB: Yeah. Yeah, she was my classmate, we became good friends. I didn't know her until we met in medical school. There was another Nisei from California I was very good friends with. And she went back to practice in California after she graduated. And there were some from Japan, some women from Japan were trained there, and some Indian women, they came from all over, actually, to this school.

MA: So women actually from Japan and from India came? Wow.

KB: Right, and went back to their country after they were trained. It had an interesting history.

<End Segment 29> - Copyright © 2008 Densho. All Rights Reserved.