Dr. Laura Heath Hills
Who was she?
According to the City Directory for the years 1909-1910, Laura Heath Hills was a physician and surgeon who was also member of the CT Medical Society. She is recorded to have had a hospital in Willimantic around 1910. She was born in Willimantic on March 1st of 1872. She attended Windham High School, earned a medical degree from the Women's Medical College of Pennsylvania (WMCP) in 1896, and did postgraduate work at Harvard Medical College where she studied pedriatics. She recorded her experiences as a medical student in scrapbooks that have been digitized today. The scrapbooks can be found on the Drexel University Legacy Center College of Medicine as well as in inherownright.org. Her scrapbooks are important because they document what the life of a female medical student was at the end of the 19th century.
Her father used to be a doctor as well. She took over his practice which was located in 17 North Street behind the Methodist Church. She was listed as both surgeon and physician in the census and in general practice. An advertisement from the November 1910 Chronicle listed her office hours as well as her specialty in "Diseases of Women."