Dr. Dolores Mercedes Piñero, (1892–1975) was one of the first four Puerto Rican women to earn a medical degree. She was also one of the first civilian doctors, and the first Puerto Rican female doctor to serve under contract in the U.S. Army during World War I. During World War I, Piñero helped establish a hospital in
Puerto Rico
Puerto Rico (; abbreviated PR; tnq, Boriken, ''Borinquen''), officially the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico ( es, link=yes, Estado Libre Asociado de Puerto Rico, lit=Free Associated State of Puerto Rico), is a Caribbean island and unincorporated ...
to attend soldiers who had contracted the
swine flu
Swine influenza is an infection caused by any of several types of swine influenza viruses. Swine influenza virus (SIV) or swine-origin influenza virus (S-OIV) refers to any strain of the influenza family of viruses that is endemic in pigs. As ...
.
Early years
Piñero was born in
San Juan, Puerto Rico
San Juan (, , ; Spanish for "Saint John") is the capital city and most populous municipality in the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, an unincorporated territory of the United States. As of the 2020 census, it is the 57th-largest city under the juri ...
at a time when the island was still a
Spanish colony
The Spanish Empire ( es, link=no, Imperio español), also known as the Hispanic Monarchy ( es, link=no, Monarquía Hispánica) or the Catholic Monarchy ( es, link=no, Monarquía Católica) was a colonial empire governed by Spain and its prede ...
. There she received her primary and secondary education. Spain ceded Puerto Rico to the United States in accordance with the agreement reached in the 1898 Treaty of Paris, which officially ended the
Spanish–American War
, partof = the Philippine Revolution, the decolonization of the Americas, and the Cuban War of Independence
, image = Collage infobox for Spanish-American War.jpg
, image_size = 300px
, caption = (cloc ...
. Piñero was sent by her family to Boston, Massachusetts where she became fluent in English and continued her college education. In 1913, she earned her medical degree from the College of Physicians and Surgeons in Boston.Women's Military Memorial Piñero was one of the first four women from Puerto Rico to earn a medical degree. The other three were
María Elisa Rivera Díaz
María Elisa Rivera y León de Díaz (born 1887 in Hatillo, Puerto Rico) was one of the first four women from Puerto Rico to earn a medical degree; the other three were Ana Janer in 1909, Palmira Gatell in 1910, and Dolores Piñero in 1913.
and
Ana Janer
Ana Janer was one of the first two women from Puerto Rico to earn a medical degree."LA MUJER EN LAS PROFESIONES DE SALUD (1898-1930); By: YAMILA AZIZE VARGAS1 and LUIS ALBERTO AVILES; PRHSJ Vol, 9 No. 1
Return to Puerto Rico
After earning her degree, Piñero returned to Puerto Rico and set up her medical and anesthesia practice in what was then the town of
Río Piedras
Rio or Río is the Portuguese, Spanish, Italian, and Maltese word for "river". When spoken on its own, the word often means Rio de Janeiro, a major city in Brazil.
Rio or Río may also refer to:
Geography Brazil
* Rio de Janeiro
* Rio do Sul, a ...
(it is now a section of San Juan).
In 1917, with the advent of World War I, the United States approved the
Jones–Shafroth Act
The Jones–Shafroth Act () —also known as the Jones Act of Puerto Rico, Jones Law of Puerto Rico, or as the Puerto Rican Federal Relations Act of 1917— was an Act of the United States Congress, signed by President Woodrow Wilson on March ...
which conferred U.S. citizenship on Puerto Ricans. Puerto Ricans, with the exception of the women, were eligible for the draft.
When the United States entered World War I, the U.S. Army Medical Corps believed that they had enough male physicians to cover their needs. Piñero applied for a position as a contract surgeon only to be turned down. After writing a letter to the Army Surgeon General in
Washington, D.C.
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, image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, ...
explaining her intentions, she received a telegram ordering her to report to
Camp Las Casas
Camp Las Casas was a United States military installation established in Santurce, Puerto Rico in 1904. The camp was the main training base of the "Porto Rico Regiment of Infantry," On January 15, 1899, the military government changed the name of ...
at Santurce, Puerto Rico where she was assigned to the Medical Service Corps of the Army Medical Department.
By 1918, the Army realized that there was a shortage of physicians specializing in anesthesia, a low-salary specialty required in the military operating rooms. Therefore, the Army reluctantly began hiring women physicians as civilian contract employees. Contract physicians, however had little status within the military. They did not wear uniforms and had little authority.
In October 1918, Piñero signed her contract with the Army. In this manner, and at her own insistence, Piñero contributed her professional skills to the war effort. She was reassigned to the Army General Hospital of Fort Brooke, located in the former
Ballajá Barracks
The Ballajá Barracks (''Cuartel de Ballajá'' in Spanish) is a historic building and former military barracks located in the Ballajá section of Old San Juan, in the city of San Juan, Puerto Rico. It is located close to El Morro and its esplana ...
(in the grounds of the
Fort San Felipe del Morro
Castillo San Felipe del Morro, also known as El Morro, is a citadel built between 16th and 18th centuries in San Juan, Puerto Rico.ww ...
) in
Old San Juan
Old San Juan ( es, Viejo San Juan) is a historic district located at the "northwest triangle" of the islet of San Juan. Its area roughly correlates to the Ballajá, Catedral, Marina, Mercado, San Cristóbal, and San Francisco sub-barrios (s ...
. There she worked as an anesthesiologist during the mornings, and in the laboratory during the afternoons. Piñero and four male colleagues received orders to open a 400-bed hospital in
Ponce, Puerto Rico
Ponce (, , , ) is both a city and a municipality on the southern coast of Puerto Rico. The city is the seat of the municipal government.
Ponce, Puerto Rico's most populated city outside the San Juan metropolitan area, was founded on 12 August 1 ...
, to care for the patients who had been infected with influenza, known also as "the Swine Flu." Among the nurses who served in Ponce with Piñero was Rosa A. González, a noted registered nurse who authored ''The Nurses Medical Dictionary''.Salud Promujer 1 The Swine Flu had swept through Army camps and training posts around the world, infecting one quarter of all soldiers and killing more than 55,000 American troops. After the flu epidemic ended, Piñero was ordered back to the Army base hospital at San Juan.
Post World War I
When her contract ended at the close of World War I, Piñero returned to her private practice in Río Piedras. She married Celestino López Pérez and had a son Jose Antonio López Piñero and on March 17, 1922, had a daughter named Dolores "Lolin" Piñero-López (1922-2011) who was the founder of "Old Whims and New Fancies", an antique store in
El Paso, Texas
El Paso (; "the pass") is a city in and the county seat, seat of El Paso County, Texas, El Paso County in the western corner of the U.S. state of Texas. The 2020 population of the city from the United States Census Bureau, U.S. Census Bureau w ...
.Dignity Memorial /ref>
Little is known of Piñero's later years, with the exception that she was one of the leaders of the local Women's Civic Club and that she worked for the Puerto Rico Department of Health. Piñero was also the first Puerto Rican female to be named to the Puerto Rican Medical Examiners Board. Piñero resided with her husband in Monacillo,
Río Piedras, Puerto Rico
Río Piedras is a populous district of San Juan, and former town and municipality of Puerto Rico, which was merged with the municipality of San Juan in 1951. The district today is composed of various '' barrios'' (these are the primary legal divi ...
. She died in 1975 in San Juan, Puerto Rico.
Further reading
*"Women Doctors in War (Williams-Ford Texas A&M University Military History Series)"; by: Judith Bellafaire and Mercedes Herrera Graf; Publisher: TAMU Press; ; . The contributions of Dr. Dolores Piñero are found om pages 43, 46 and 56.
Puerto Rican women in the military
Two of the least-known roles played by Puerto Rican women and women of Puerto Rican descent have been that of soldier and that of revolutionary. This is a brief account of some the Puerto Rican women who have participated in military actions as m ...
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Puerto Ricans in World War I
Puerto Ricans and people of Puerto Rican descent have participated as members of the United States Armed Forces in every conflict in which the United States has been involved since World War I.
One of the consequences of the Spanish–American ...
*
Puerto Rican scientists and inventors
Before Christopher Columbus and the Spanish Conquistadors landed on the island of "Borikén" (Puerto Rico), the Tainos who inhabited the island depended on their astronomical observations for the cultivation of their crops.
In 1581, Jua ...
*
History of women in Puerto Rico
The recorded history of Puerto Rican women can trace its roots back to the era of the ''Taíno'', the indigenous people of the Caribbean, who inhabited the island that they called "Boriken" before the arrival of Spaniards. During the Spanish c ...