Salma Ismail

Tan Sri Salma binti Ismail (19 December 1918 – 20 July 2014) was a Malaysian medical doctor and the first Malaysian Malay woman to qualify as a doctor. She became one of the first Malay general practitioners to open a private practice in 1967.

Biography Salma Ismail was born on 19 December 1918 in Alor Setar, Kedah. She attended Kampung Baru Girls' School, Kolej Sultan Abdul Hamid, and Sultanah Asma Secondary School, where one of the houses now bears her name. She completed the Junior Cambridge examinations in 1933 and Senior Cambridge in 1935, she was the first girl from Kedah to pass the Senior Cambridge with a distinction. She began her medical studies at the King Edward VII College of Medicine in Singapore in 1936. Classes at the college were suspended during World War II, and so Salma returned to Malaysia in 1941 to work as a trainee doctor at Alor Setar General Hospital. She resumed her studies in 1946 and graduated with a Licentiate in Medicine and Surgery in 1947.

Honour Honour of Malaysia

Commander of the Order of Loyalty to the Crown of Malaysia (P.S.M.) (1997)