Emily Wilson Walker

Emily Hammond Wilson Walker (July 8, 1904 – ) was an American physician. Only the second woman to graduate from her medical school, the Medical College of Georgia, she was initially refused a position at Anne Arundel Hospital but went on to become its chief of staff. A career country doctor of more than 50 years, she set up early sexual health and prenatal clinics and diagnosed the first case of Rocky Mountain spotted fever in Maryland. She was known for her willingness to treat all patients regardless of means, as well as her resistance to Jim Crow laws, welcoming African American patients into her waiting room alongside white ones.

Early life and education Emily Cumming Hammond was born on July 8, 1904, on Redcliffe Plantation, in Beech Island, South Carolina, to Mary Gwyn Hammond and Christopher Cashiel Fitzsimmons Hammond. She was the eldest of eight, born into a formerly upper-class family that was impoverished by the time of her birth. Her great-grandfather was James Henry Hammond, who had served as Governor and US Senator from South Carolina before the Civil War.

Emily Hammond became interested in medicine as a child, assisting her mother's charity work with African American families who often cared for their sick children as they were often unable to access medical care in the Jim Crow South. By 13, Emily Hammond earned the nickname "Doc" and began to pursue a dream of becoming a real doctor. or day labor on her farms,

In 1932, Hammond married John Fletcher Wilson, moved her office to their farm in Lothian, and thereafter went by Dr. Wilson. They had two sons, born in 1934 (John Junior) and 1936 (Christopher),

In 2008, Walker was posthumously inducted into the Maryland Women's Hall of Fame.