Jessie McLaren MacGregor

One of the first women awarded an MD from the University of Edinburgh.

Name: Jessie McLaren MacGregor
Category: former student
Role:  registrar at the Royal Hospital for Sick Children, Edinburgh
Time active at Edinburgh Medical School: graduated in 1899 

Black and white image of Jessie, in graduation robes, sitting at a desk with a dog at her side
Image courtesy of Lothian Health Services Archive

Jessie MacLaren MacGregor was one of the first women to be awarded an MD from the University of Edinburgh in 1899. 

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

Jessie took her medical degree in 1896 at the Edinburgh School of Medicine for Women (set up by Sophia Jex-Blake), achieving first-class honours in every subject in the curriculum and receiving a scholarship. When she received her MD (Doctor of Medicine) in 1899, she became the first woman to be awarded this qualification from the University of Edinburgh. Additionally, she was awarded a gold medal for her thesis. 

In her clinical work, she set up a shared medical practice with Elsie Inglis before going on to become a junior physician at the Edinburgh Hospital for Women and Children and then a registrar at the Royal Hospital for Sick Children, Edinburgh.

In 1905, for family reasons, Jessie left her practice in Edinburgh and emigrated to the Denver, Colorado, USA, but died in 1906 at the age of 42 of acute cerebral meningitis. 

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