Jennie Kidd Trout

Who was Jennie Kidd Trout?

Jennie Kidd Trout was the first woman in Canada legally to become a medical doctor, and was the only woman in Canada licensed to practice medicine until 1880, when Emily Stowe completed the official qualifications.

Born Jennie Kidd Gowanlock in Wooden Mills, Kelso, Scotland, Jennie moved with her parents to Canada in 1847, settling near Stratford, Ontario. Trout had taken a course in teaching after graduation, and had taught until her marriage to Edward Trout. She married Trout in 1865 and thereafter moved to Toronto, where Edward ran a newspaper.

Motivated by her own chronic illnesses, she decided on a medical career, passing her matriculation exam in 1871 and studying medicine at the University of Toronto. Trout and Emily Jennings Stowe were together the first women admitted to the Toronto School of Medicine, by special arrangement. Stowe, however, refused to sit her exams in protest of the school's demeaning treatment of the two women. Trout later transferred to the Women's Medical College in Pennsylvania, where she earned her M.D. on March 11, 1875 and become the first licensed female physician in Canada.