Sara Mayo

Sara Tew Mayo, M.D., (1869-1930) was a physician and humanitarian reformer in New Orleans, Louisiana, USA. She served the underprivileged and advanced the cause of women as physicians at a time and place when few women were practicing physicians as a result of gender discrimination. Mayo was a founding member of the New Orleans Hospital and Dispensary for Women and Children which was renamed the Sara Mayo Hospital in 1948.

Early life and education Mayo was born on May 26, 1869, in Catahoula Parish, Louisiana, near the villages of Harrisonburg and Vidalia, Louisiana, to parents George Spencer Mayo and Emily Mayo (née Tew). Her father was a lawyer. She had two sisters, Edith Mayo (1872 - 1902) and May Mayo (1868 - 1929). Sara Mayo is reported to have had interest in medicine starting as a child, practicing on dolls and pets. Mayo's parents died when Mayo was a child. After their death, she moved to New Orleans to live with her father's cousin, Judge William Brainerd Spencer. Mayo attended public schools.

Because admissions policies of the times at many medical schools barred women from pursuing medical degrees, Mayo was denied admission to nearby Tulane University School of Medicine. Mayo enrolled at the Women's Medical College of Pennsylvania, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Mayo graduated with her medical degree from the Women's Medical College of Pennsylvania in 1898.

The original location of the hospital was in a modest building at 1823 Annunciation Street in the Irish Channel of New Orleans, with just $25 in start-up capital (worth approximately $759 in inflation-adjusted 2021 dollars ). The building was a converted four story house which was donated by fellow female physician and founder Susanna Otis. From its inception, the hospital was staffed exclusively by women, with Mayo and the other founding physicians providing services in internal medicine, surgery, pediatrics, dermatology, obstetrics / gynecology, neurology, and dentistry. One of the founders, M. Blanche Tassy, was a dentist, thereby enabling the hospital to provide dental services.

As the hospital outgrew its original location, it moved to a facility at 810 Felicity Street in New Orleans, and then in 1940 to a much larger facility at 625 Jackson Avenue in New Orleans. By 1969, Sara Mayo Hospital had 169 beds. As of July 2021, the structure was severely dilapidated.

Other professional activities In 1907, Mayo established a "District Nursing Service" to provide home health nursing to underprivileged people. New Orleans Mayor Martin Behrman appointed Mayo to the board of directors of the Sickles Commission. In this post, Mayo influenced the fund to provide significant financing for prescription drugs to underprivileged people in the New Orleans area. A representative of a presentation by Mayo was one on effective parenthood and its value to the good of the community in a 1914 presentation in Vicksburg, Mississippi. She was active in the New Orleans Federation of Women's Clubs.

Mayo was active in the Era Club of New Orleans in its efforts to advanced social reform and feminist causes, led at the time by suffragist Kate M. Gordon. and was interred at Metairie Cemetery. She continued to work as a physician and on behalf of humanitarian causes until the time of her death. Her grave stone gives a different birthdate than other sources (April 1870 rather than May 1869).

Awards and honors Mayo was the winner of the New Orleans Times-Picayune Loving Cup Award in 1910 in recognition of her charitable work. In 2018 the New Orleans Times-Picayune newspaper named Mayo one of its "300 for 300", honoring 300 people who contributed significantly to the 300 year history of the City of New Orleans. As part of the "300 for 300", the newspaper commissioned a portrait of Mayo by artist Saegan Swanson.

The city government of New Orleans has considered renaming Penn Street in honor of Mayo. As of May 2021, the change has not happened.

Shortly after Mayo's death in 1930, the Board of Directors of the New Orleans Hospital and Dispensary for Women and Children issued a resolution stating:

"Her cheery smile, hopeful words, great skill and greater heart have proved a boon to untold thousands of women who, through her ministrations, have been lifted out of a condition of pain and disease into health again. She gave unstintingly not only of her skill, but of her heart."