Mary Bruins Allison
Mary Bruins Allison (March 19, 1903 – September 15, 1994) was one of the first American women to be trained in medicine in the United States to work as a missionary physician in Arabia. While attending medical college in Philadelphia, she learned Arabic. In 1934, she went to the Middle East to work as a missionary physician. In her forty-year long career, she worked primarily in Kuwait, as well as India, Qatar, Bahrain and Oman. In her capacity in Kuwait, she treated rich and poor women. To be successful, she had to overcome a number of obstacles, including limited trained medical staff, insufficient medical resources, as well as barriers due to cultural, lingual and religious differences. She made significant contributions in establishing modern medical care in the countries where she worked; Allison was asked by the rulers of Bahrain and Oman to help establish hospitals in their countries. She returned to the United States in 1975. Early life and education On March 19, 1903, Mary Bruins was born in Holland, Michigan to Henry Bruins and Mary Huizinga. In 1907, her father accepted a position as minister at the First Reformed Church in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The Bruins family moved in 1917 to Pella, Iowa and she attended Pella High School. In the fall of 1922, she began her studies at Central College in Pella. She joined the Woman's Medical College of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia in the fall of 1928. In 1932, she interned at Wisconsin General Hospital in Madison, Wisconsin. She studied Arabic from 1933 to 1934 at Hartford Theological School. In 1934, she did her second internship at the University of Illinois at Chicago in obstetrics. Career Kuwait Allison arrived in Kuwait City, Kuwait in 1934. In the beginning, she studied Arabic in the mornings and then worked at the mission. The hospital was built land by the Kuwait Bay that was provided by Shaikh Mubarak, who had invited the Arabian Mission to run a hospital in the city. Due to cultural constraints, Allison generally treated women. Her patients were of all social classes, from the richest woman who was her first patient, to the poorest Kuwaiti women originally from Iran. Allison was required to first attend to the VIP, or aristocratic women, who she charged an extra fee for the convenience. It was a cultural norm for women to have their babies at their home or their mother's home, and professional medical attention was not sought unless there was a problem. This meant that when Allison handled deliveries, they were more likely to be due to prenatal complications. To treat these cases, Dr. Allison often needed to leave the hospital to make house calls. Some women died due to complications in their homes. Over time, more pregnant women went to the hospital for prenatal care and delivery. Several places In 1940, Allison followed her husband to India, where she worked for two years. She then returned to the United States and worked at a medical practice in New Jersey.