Concepción Palacios Herrera (5 December 1893 – 1 May 1981) born in

El Sauce, León El Sauce () is a town and a municipality in the León Department of Nicaragua. Located in the foothills of the Segovia Mountains, the municipality has a population of 31,664 and covers an area of 693 km2. El Sauce is bordered to the north b ...

, was the first female physician in

Nicaragua Nicaragua (; ), officially the Republic of Nicaragua (), is the largest country in Central America, bordered by Honduras to the north, the Caribbean to the east, Costa Rica to the south, and the Pacific Ocean to the west. Managua is the cou ...

. Her mother was a midwife and healer and her father was a medical naturalist. She was expelled from school for refusing compulsory communion, but the feminist

Josefa Toledo de Aguerri Josefa Toledo de Aguerri or Josefa Emilia Toledo Murillo (21 April 1866 – 27 April 1962) was a Nicaraguan feminist, writer and reform pedagogue. Regarded as a pioneer for education of women in Nicaragua, she is along with Dame Angélica Balla ...

supported her so that she was able to study in the Normal School for Young Ladies, from which she graduated in 1919. She went to Mexico in 1919, and in 1927 she graduated as a physician and surgeon from the National School of Medicine of the

National Autonomous University of Mexico The National Autonomous University of Mexico ( es, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, UNAM) is a public research university in Mexico. It is consistently ranked as one of the best universities in Latin America, where it's also the bigges ...

(UNAM). In 1928 she returned to Nicaragua, where she supported

Augusto César Sandino Augusto C. Sandino (; May 18, 1895 February 21, 1934), full name Augusto Nicolás Calderón de Sandino y José de María Sandino, was a Nicaraguan revolutionary and leader of a rebellion between 1927 and 1933 against the United States occupati ...

's fight against the American occupation of Nicaragua. President

Jose Maria Moncada Jose is the English transliteration of the Hebrew and Aramaic name ''Yose'', which is etymologically linked to ''Yosef'' or Joseph. The name was popular during the Mishnaic and Talmudic periods. *Jose ben Abin *Jose ben Akabya *Jose the Galilean ...

had her imprisoned for political reasons, and she went to Mexico when she was freed. She also worked in the U.S. as a specialist, surgeon, and obstetrician. She volunteered as a member of the Allied Expeditionary Force in Europe from 1945 through 1946, serving survivors of the Nazi concentration camps and people displaced by war.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Herrera, Concepcion Palacios 1893 births 1981 deaths National Autonomous University of Mexico alumni Nicaraguan feminists Nicaraguan women activists Nicaraguan obstetricians People from León, Nicaragua Women physicians Women surgeons 20th-century surgeons Nicaraguan expatriates in Mexico