Doctors have become so many these days and it's almost hard to believe that there was no Kenyan-born female doctor until the 1960s.
Florence Ngend'o Mwangi, who was born in Kinoo, Kiambu County, made history when she became Kenya’s first female physician in 1965.
Ngend'o was a woman of many first as she was part of the pioneer class at Loreto High School Limuru.
She was also among the beneficiaries of the Kennedy Educational Airlifts that were organised by former Labour Minister Tom Mboya.
She was also the first black African woman to attend Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts and the first African student at Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York City.
After qualifying, Ngend'o reportedly returned to Kenya and worked at Kenyatta National Hospital (KNH), then known as King George VI Hospital.
She quit her job at the hospital after some years and set up her own practice in Athi River to assist the locals.
Her clinic was said to have served a population of about 300,000 and people had to trek more than 80 kilometres to get treatment for illnesses such as malaria, diarrhoea, tuberculosis, polio, chickenpox, measles and tetanus.
The clinic, which served more than 50 people a day, was ill-equipped since it didn't have electricity or the necessary equipment forcing her to seek funding from well-wishers.
In 1984, she set up several mobile clinics and a 50-bed facility to help community members who were starving and malnourished due to the drought that had hit the country.
Ngendo's hospital attended to more than a million people in the years that followed and saved them from imminent death.
In 1987, she was forced to step away from the project after being diagnosed with breast cancer. Ngend'o died two years later.
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