Jessie MacGregor

Biography

Jessie MacGregor was one of the first women to be awarded an MD (Doctor of Medicine) from the University of Edinburgh in 1899. 

MacGregor began her medical studies at the Edinburgh School of Medicine for Women. This school had been established just nine years earlier by the physician and campaigner Sophia Jex Blake.

MacGregor first qualified as a licentiate of the three Scottish colleges (Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh, Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow and the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh). This examination was known as the Triple Qualification. 

She then received her MBChB (Bachelor of Medicine) degree in 1896. When MacGregor received her MD three years later she was awarded a gold medal for her thesis.

Her clinical work began when she set up a shared medical practice with Elsie Inglis. She then went on to take up an appointment as Junior Physician at the Edinburgh Hospital for Women and Children and as a Registrar at the Royal Hospital for Sick Children, Edinburgh.

MacGregor was a co-founder, alongside Inglis, of the Muir Hall of Residence for Women Students in Edinburgh which provided support for other pioneering women students like her. MacGregor was also the co-founder of The Hospice on the Royal Mile – a free maternity hospital for working class women.

MacGregor was made a member of the Edinburgh Obstetrical Society in 1901 and regularly presented papers at society meetings.