Kei Okami
{{Short description|Japanese physician (1859–1941)}}
{{Infobox person
| name = Kei Okami
| image = Anandibai Joshee, Kei Okami, and Tabat M. Islambooly.jpg
| alt = Kei Okami (center) with Anandi Gopal Joshi (left) and Sabat Islambouli (right), picture from 10 October 1885
| caption = Kei Okami (center) with Anandi Gopal Joshi (left) and Sabat Islambouli (right), picture from 10 October 1885
| birth_name =
|alma_mater= Women's Medical College of Pennsylvania, 1889.
| birth_date = {{Birth date|1859|9|11|df=yes}}
| birth_place = Aomori Prefecture, Japan
| death_date = {{Death date and age|1941|9|2|1859|8|15|df=yes}}
| death_place =
| nationality = Japanese
| other_names = Nishida Keiko, Keiko Okami, Kei Nishida Okami, Kyōko Okami
| occupation = Physician
| known_for = The first Japanese woman to obtain a degree in Western medicine from a Western university
}}
{{Nihongo|Kei Okami|岡見 京|Okami Kei|11 September 1859{{cite news|title=明治女医の基礎資料|url=http://jsmh.umin.jp/journal/54-3/281.pdf|language=Japanese|date=2008|author=三﨑 裕子|access-date=2021-06-19|periodical=日本医史学雑誌|volume=54|number=3|page=282}} – 2 September 1941{{cite web|title=Kyōko Okami|url=http://kotobank.jp/word/%E5%B2%A1%E8%A6%8B%E4%BA%AC%E5%AD%90|work=Nihon jinmei daijiten+Plus|publisher=Kōdansha|accessdate=7 February 2014|language=Japanese}}}} was a Japanese physician. She was the first Japanese woman to obtain a degree in Western medicine from a Western university (Women's Medical College of Pennsylvania, USA).
Early life
Kei Okami was born as Nishida Keiko in Aomori Prefecture in 1858. She graduated from the Yokohama Kyoritsu Girls' School in 1878, and then taught English at the Sakurai Girls' School. She married an art teacher, Okami Senkichiro, at the age of 25. The couple subsequently traveled to the United States.{{cite book | author=Hamish Ion | title=American Missionaries, Christian Oyatoi, and Japan, 1859-73 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=GLryW-KYZFUC&pg=PA230 | isbn=978-0-7748-5899-1 | publisher = UBC Press | year = 2010 | page=230}}
Medical training
In America, Kei Okami studied at the Woman's Medical College of Pennsylvania, receiving aid from the Women's Foreign Missionary Society of the Presbyterian Church. After four years of study, she graduated in 1889, with Susan La Flesche Picotte.{{cite book | title=JAMA: The Journal of the American Medical Association | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=zIw1AQAAMAAJ&pg=PA455 | year=1889 | publisher=American Medical Association | pages=455 }}{{cite web | url = http://xdl.drexelmed.edu/item.php?object_id=3053&t=womanmd | title = Dr. Kei Okami | work = Woman's Medical College of Pennsylvania: Photograph Collection. 1850-present | publisher = Drexel University | accessdate = 2014-01-26 }} She thus became the first Japanese woman to obtain a degree in the Western medicine from a Western university.
Medical career
After returning to Japan, Kei Okami also worked at the Jikei Hospital (now the Jikei University School of Medicine hospital) at the invitation of Takaki Kanehiro. She resigned because the Emperor, Meiji, refused her care because she was female.{{Cite book|last=Starita|first=Joe|url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/959372317|title=A warrior of the people : how Susan La Flesche overcame racial and gender inequality to become America's first Indian doctor|date=2016|isbn=978-1-250-08534-4|location=New York|pages=156|oclc=959372317}}{{Cite news|url=https://thetriangle.org/snowball/the-graduates/|title=The Graduates - The Triangle|work=The Triangle|access-date=2018-04-09|language=en-US|archive-date=2023-01-05|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230105110232/https://www.thetriangle.org/snowball/the-graduates/|url-status=dead}}{{Unreliable source?|reason=student newspaper|date=June 2018}} Then, she opened her own clinic, operating out of her home in Akasaka Tameike, Minato.{{cite web | url = http://www.lib.city.minato.tokyo.jp/yukari/e/man-detail.cgi?id=17 | title = Prominent People of Minato City: Keiko Okami | accessdate = 2014-01-26 | publisher = Minato City Administration | archive-date = 2016-11-18 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20161118042445/http://www.lib.city.minato.tokyo.jp/yukari/e/man-detail.cgi?id=17 | url-status = dead }} Kei Okami worked in gynecology and also treated tuberculosis patients.{{Unreliable source?|reason=student newspaper|date=June 2018}}
Later, she closed the practice, and served as the vice-principal of Shoei Girls' school (a predecessor of the Shoei Girls' Junior and Senior High School), which was founded by her brother-in-law Kiyomune. In 1897, she opened a small hospital for sick women in partnership with a friend, Mrs. True. She also established a school of nursing in the same premises. The hospital closed after nine years, as there were very few patients, mostly limited to foreign female preachers. Subsequently, she retired due to breast cancer. A devout Christian, she participated in missionary work in Japan, as well as teaching anatomy to nurses in one of Japan's largest hospitals.{{cite journal | title = Women's Foreign Missionary Society of the Presbyterian Church | journal=Woman's Work for Woman and Our Mission Field | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=GhDPAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA136 | year=1889 | publisher=Women's Foreign Missionary Societies of the Presbyterian Church | volume = IV | pages=136, 333}}
See also
- Ogino Ginko, who graduated from the Juntendo University in 1882.
References
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Category:People from Aomori Prefecture
Category:Woman's Medical College of Pennsylvania alumni
Category:19th-century Japanese physicians
Category:19th-century Japanese women physicians
Category:20th-century Japanese physicians