Rosa Kerschbaumer-Putjata

Rosa Kerschbaumer-Putjata (, Russian: аиса Васильевна Шлыкова, 21 April 1851 – 27 July 1923) was a Russian ophthalmologist and Austria's first female doctor. She campaigned for women's right to study medicine in Austria.

Family Kerschbaumer-Putjata was born in 1851 in Moscow. Her father Wassilij Schlykow (1815–1875) was a Russian State Councillor and member of the Russian landed gentry and her mother was called Adelaida Ogarjowa (1826–1895).

At the age of 18, she married Vladimir Putjata, a student and official of the censorship department at the Moscow Post Office.

Education and career Kerschbaumer-Putjata studied medicine in Switzerland, firstly at the Universität Zürich (University of Zurich) along with her sister Jenja. She achieved her doctorate from Universität Bern (University of Bern) in 1876 Remembrance plaque to Kerschbaumer-Putjata in Salzburg, Schwarzstraße 32In 1881, using her own funds, Kerschbaumer-Putjata founded and ran an ophthalmology clinic on Schwarzstraße in Salzburg with her second husband. She cared for poor eye patients free of charge and campaigned for Austrian women to be allowed to study medicine. In 1896, Kerschbaumer-Putjata left Salzburg to head "mobile ophthalmological troops" in Russia and to teach at the medical academy in Saint Petersburg. Kerschbaumer-Putjata next became a physician in Tbilisi, Georgia, then returned to Austria in 1907.

Throughout her career in Europe, Kerschbaumer-Putjata travelled to the major international congresses for ophthalmology and attended meetings of the Ophthalmological Society. She always employed young female doctors when she held senior positions.

In 1911, Kerschbaumer-Putjata emigrated to the Seattle, Washington, United States of America, when she was aged 60. In 1915 she moved to Los Angeles, worked at the Good Samaritan Hospital and was a member of the Medical Society of the State of California. She died in Los Angeles, California, in 1923.

Legacy In 2008, a street in Salzburg was named in her honour.