Henriette_Bùi_Quang_Chiêu

Henriette Bùi Quang Chiêu

Henriette Bùi Quang Chiêu

Vietnamese physician (1906-2012)

Henriette Bùi Quang Chiêu (1906–2012) was the first female medical doctor in Vietnam.[1][2] She went to medical school in France, and graduated there in 1934.[2][3] She opposed French colonialism in Vietnam.[2] She was pressured into an arranged marriage by her father in 1935, but later divorced.[2] She later married again.[2] She went to Japan in the 1950s to study acupuncture.[4]

Bùi Quang Chiêu in 1931

Early life

Bui was born as Henriette Bùi Quang Chiêu in Hanoi, Vietnam. Bui was the daughter of a wealthy French family in Cochinchina, Vietnam. Bui's father was Bui Quang Chieu, a politician in Cochinchina during the French colonial period who was killed by the Viet Minh. At the age of 15, Bui studied abroad in France for a year before taking a year hiatus due to illness. Bui attended Paris University in 1927 in honor of her brother, Louis Bui Quang Chieu, who was a physician in Saigon, Vietnam and also a Paris University graduate.[4]

Education

Quang Chiêu, a Vietnamese woman, was seen as an anomaly attending a professional school in France. Her attendance was thought of as a breakthrough for French education at the time. She studied at Paris University for seven years before graduating in 1934. Her school thesis was commended and awarded medals. After graduating, Quang Chiêu returned to Vietnam in 1935 where she was appointed to head of the Department of Midwifery at Cho Lon Hospital.[3]

Personal life

After returning home, Quang Chiêu was betrothed to Vuong Quang Nhuong, who was a respected lawyer in both Vietnam and France. Quang Chiêu's eventual marriage was thought to be very successful considering her and her spouses level of education and job status, but Quang Chiêu was very reluctant at first. After being pressured by her father and family Quang Chiêu married in 1935. She later divorced her husband due to her devotion to medicine.[4] In 1957 she went to Japan to study acupuncture and then returned home and developed a research direction with many effective applications for obstetrics.[4]

Further reading

  • "Henriette Bui; The Narrative of Vietnam's First Woman Doctor" in Viet-Nam Expose: French Scholarship on Twentieth-Century Vietnamese Society, eds. Gisele Bousquet and Pierre Brocheux (Ann Arbor, Michigan University Press, 2002)

References

  1. [1]
    Nguyen Huong Nguyen Cuc. Saigon 300 years old. Dallas: English Song Huong, 1999. 248 pp
  2. [2]
    "Henriette Bùi Quang Chiêu – nữ bác sĩ đầu tiên của Việt Nam – Made in SaiGon". Madeinsaigon.vn. 2012-04-27. Retrieved 2015-09-05.
  3. [3]
    Marie-Paule Ha (2014). French Women and the Empire: The Case of Indochina. Oxford University Press. pp. 201–. ISBN 978-0-19-964036-2.
  4. [4]
    Gisèle Luce Bousquet; Pierre Brocheux (2002). Viêt Nam Exposé: French Scholarship on Twentieth-century Vietnamese Society. University of Michigan Press. pp. 279–. ISBN 0-472-06805-9.
Share this article:

This article uses material from the Wikipedia article Henriette_Bùi_Quang_Chiêu, and is written by contributors. Text is available under a CC BY-SA 4.0 International License; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.