Rush Archives Blog

Honoring Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month: Pang Yuen Tseo, MD

From the Rush Archives: Celebrating Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month

The Rush Archives recognizes the historic contributions made by the Asian community during Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) Heritage Month. The AAPI umbrella term includes cultures from the entire Asian continent, including East, Southeast and South Asia and the Pacific Islands of Melanesia, Micronesia and Polynesia.

The Rush Archives honors the legacy of Pang Yuen Tseo, MD, an historic Rush Medical College alumna who contributed to medical history in both the United States and her home country of China. 

Pang Yuen Tseo, MD, (or Zou Bangyuan 邹邦元 ), of Nanchang, China, graduated from Rush Medical College, 1918. After Rush, she gained further experience at New York City's Bellevue Hospital. She was the first Chinese woman to serve on their medical staff.  

CAPTION, left: Portrait of Pang Yuen Tseo in the 1918 Rush Medical College Class Composite, Collection 4748. [1]

CAPTION, right: Dr. Tseo rides the Bellevue Hospital ambulance before departing for China to administer Danforth Hospital in Jiujiang. From New York's Daily News, March 1, 1921. [2]

Aside from earning her medical degree from Rush Medical College, she was also an alumna Northwestern University, the University of Michigan, and the University of Chicago (Rush Medical College was its medical school at the time.)

And aside from serving on the medical staff of Bellevue Hospital, Dr. Tseo practiced at Dimoc Community Health Center (New England Hospital, Boston); Willard Parker Hospital, New York City; and Loyola University, serving as first assistant under Bertha Van Hoosen, MD, another woman pioneer in medicine.

As a Chinese woman in medicine, Dr. Tseo captured the imagination of staff at the Brooklyn Eagle newspaper, inspiring poems in 1918 and 1921.

"J. A." of the Brooklyn Eagle newspaper imagined Dr. Tseo's adventures as "the first Chinese woman ambulance surgeon in all history" traveling through various immigrant communities in Brooklyn, New York, in a poem, "An Experiment," November 17, 1918. [3]

"But Dr. Pang-Yuen Tseo / Learned Stoicism, long ago; / Her calm no chaffing will unseat, / However polyglot the street."

A few years later in 1921, "J.A." devoted another poem to Dr. Tseo in honor of her impending return to China, "A Woman of China," March 8, 1921. [4]

"Kiukiang [Jiujiang] has wads of woe / She will greet with eyes aglow; / Dr. Pang-Yuen Tseo."

After eleven years in the United States, Dr. Tseo returned to China, 1921, to run Danforth Hospital in Jiujiang (now Jiujiang Women's and Children's Hospital.) She went on to found Southeastern Hospital for Women and Children in Nanjing.

For more on Dr. Tseo's life and career in the United States: "Chinese Woman Doctor Sails Home after 11 Years Visit: Mrs. Pang Yuen Tseo Has Been Appointed Physician in Charge of Dan Forth Hospital at Kiukkiang [Jiujiang]," from the Tampa Bay Times, March 8, 1921. [5]

See also, "From Inside Rush: Celebrating Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month," May 20, 2022, which highlights the stories of Ying Tak Chan, MD, Rush Medical College class of 1932, and José Cariño, MD, Rush Medical College, class of 1918. [6]

Want to learn more about the history of Rush or the Rush Archives collections? Explore the Rush Archives website, or contact the archivist, Nathalie Wheaton, MSLS.

[1] https://collections.carli.illinois.edu/digital/collection/rsh_classp/id/116/rec/1

[2] https://www.newspapers.com/article/daily-news-pangyuentseomdnyny1921/78308842/

[3] https://www.newspapers.com/article/brooklyn-eagle-pangyuentseomdbrooklyn/78308366/

[4] https://www.newspapers.com/article/brooklyn-eagle-pangyuentseomdbrooklyn/78308474/ 

[5] https://www.newspapers.com/article/tampa-bay-times-pangyuentseomdstpete/78308926/

[6] https://library.rush.edu/blog/From-Inside-Rush-Celebrating-Asian-American-and-Pacific-Islander-Heritage-Month