Following 13 financially strapped years of construction to open The Johns Hopkins Hospital in 1889, the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine faced similar financial constraints before it even opened in 1893. A core group of women, including Mary Elizabeth Garrett, Mary Gwinn, Elizabeth King and Martha Carey Thomas, said, “We’ll handle it.” Between fundraising and personal donations, they raised nearly all of the $500,000 needed to open the school, with the stipulation that admission standards be equal for men and women.

The school of medicine’s first class in 1893 included three women. Women outnumbered men for the first time in the 1994 freshman class, with the trend remaining about 50-50 ever since. Today, women still have a strong pres­ence across Johns Hopkins Medicine, with the 2016 Diversity and Inclusion Annual Report showing nearly three-quarters of employees being female. In 2015, the school of medicine celebrated a milestone achievement of more than 200 women promoted to full professors, with the current number standing at 232. Girl power, indeed.

In honor of National Women’s His­tory Month in March, meet a few of Johns Hopkins’ female pioneers, past and present.

Florence Sabin: When the 1900 school of medicine graduate was promoted to associ­ate professor of anatomy in 1905, the Baltimore News commented that “the appointment of a woman to a position of this rank in an institution of such distinction as The Johns Hopkins Medical School … is without parallel among American universities…”

Helen Taussig was the school of medicine’s second female professor and received the Presiden­tial Medal of Freedom for her pioneering surgeries on “blue babies,” or babies born with congenital heart defects. She also became the first woman elected president of the Ameri­can Heart Association in 1965.

Lisa Cooper, the Bloomberg Distinguished Professor of health and health care equity, became the first African- American professor at the school of medicine in 2007. She recalls challenges along the way of conducting research in her field, equity in health and health care: “My field was in its infancy, and I had to convince many skeptics of its legitimacy as an area of scientific inquiry. Another challenge was demonstrating to my mostly male colleagues that I would be able to handle the demands of a research career while also being a wife, a mother and a person committed to community service.”

Tina Cheng is an expert in pediatrics, so it was no surprise when in 2016, she was named the Given Foundation Professor of Pediatrics, director of the Depart­ment of Pediatrics, the first woman pediatrician-in-chief of The Johns Hopkins Hospital and co-director of the Johns Hopkins Children’s Center. ”As a young girl, I knew I wanted to be a doctor, but there were few role models available to me,” she says. “During my pediatrics rotation, I recognized that maximizing child health, well-being and development optimizes potential for that child to be a productive adult. Children are our future. Men and women alike need to be passionate child advocates to ensure our future.”