Elizabeth Garrett Anderson, born in 1836, was the first woman in Britain to qualify as a physician and surgeon in 1865 after discovering a loophole in the Worshipful company of Apothecaries. She was raised in a progressive environment and came from a privileged background. Along with being a medical pioneer, she was also a political campaigner and suffragette. She opened the first hospital in Britain where women could be treated by female doctors, paving the way for other women to enter the medical field. Elizabeth Blackwell was the first woman to earn a medical degree in the United States, along with her sister Emily and Marie.