Rebel Doctor Evangelina Rodríguez Improved Lives and Courted Controversy on her Return to the Dominican Republic

image via New Scientist

March 27, 2025, 3:00 PM

• •Evangelina Rodríguez Perozo was the Dominican Republic's first female doctor.
• •After returning from Paris in 1925, she set up a new medical practice and launched several innovative health programs.
• •She advocated for sex workers and contraception, which made her controversial in her conservative Catholic country.
• •She was eventually denounced by the Catholic Church and the military dictator Rafael Leonidas Trujillo.

Evangelina Rodríguez Perozo, the Dominican Republic’s first female doctor, got a warm welcome on her return to the country from Paris in 1925. And she went straight to work, introducing her new ideas about health care for women and children. She set up a new medical practice and managed to get farmers to provide free milk for poor infants. But her proselytizing about contraception and her work with prostitutes made even her friends uncomfortable. Her ideas were ahead of her time, and those around her failed to keep up.

Read original article