Maria Cuțarida-Crătunescu

Maria Cuțarida-Crătunescu (February 10, 1857 – November 16, 1919) was the first woman to be a medical doctor in Romania. As an active feminist supporter, she founded the Maternal Society in 1897, and in 1899 organised the first crèche in Romania.

As a native of Călărași, she graduated from the Central School for Girls in Bucharest. She then enrolled in the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Zurich in 1877, but because of language difficulties and advantages received by students with diplomas from France, she transferred to the University of Montpellier, where she did her undergraduate thesis. Cuțarida-Crătunescu did her hospital internship and doctoral training in Paris. During World War I she worked as a physician in Military Hospital no. 134. She retired after the war for health reasons and died in Bucharest in 1919.