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​Irma LeVasseur Facts & Worksheets

​Irma LeVasseur was the first French-Canadian female doctor and founder of the Hôpital Sainte-Justine in Montréal and the Hôpital de l’Enfant-Jésus in Québec City.

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​Irma LeVasseur was the first French-Canadian female doctor and founder of the Hôpital Sainte-Justine in Montréal and the Hôpital de l’Enfant-Jésus in Québec City.

See the fact file below for more information on the ​Irma LeVasseur or alternatively, you can download our 22-page ​Irma LeVasseur worksheet pack to utilise within the classroom or home environment.

Key Facts & Information

EARLY LIFE AND EDUCATION

  • Born in Québec City on January 20, 1877, Irma Levasseur was one of four children of the singer Phédora Venner and Nazaire Le Vasseur, a journalist, public servant, musician, and writer.
  • She attended the Couvent Jésus-Marie in Sillery and the École normale Laval, a teachers’ college, then studied for six years at the School of Medicine at Minnesota’s Saint Paul University from in 1894.
  • At the time, Canadian universities did not accept women in medicine; this was why she went to the United States.
  • She practiced medicine in New York with Dr. Mary Putnam Jacobi before returning to her country.
  • Upon her return to Quebec, she had to wait three more years before obtaining the right to practice her profession.
  • She petitioned the Canadian National Assembly to pass a private member’s bill, giving her the title and authority to practice medicine in her home province.
  • Her petition was approved, and she was admitted to the College of physicians and Surgeons of the province of Quebec.
  • She became the twelfth woman in Québec and the first French-Canadian woman to gain the right in 1903.

HER PROFESSION

  • After earning the right to practice, Dr. LeVasseur left for Paris and Germany to specialize in pediatrics and worked with Dr. Madeleine Brès, the first Frenchwoman to practice medicine and a renowned pediatrician.
  • Three years on, she worked at Montreal’s Crèche de la Miséricorde, a facility for children of single mothers, and at the school medical inspection service.
  • In 1907, Dr. LeVasseur collaborated with several physicians to found a hospital that focused on fighting against the high rates of infant mortality.
  • Hôpital Sainte-Justine became the first French-Canadian pediatric hospital in Québec. The following year, after some disagreements, she was relieved of her position as director, which led to her resigning.
  • She continued her medical practice back in New York where she worked for the city’s public health department as a medical inspector for schools until April 1915.
  • Responding to a call for Canadian physicians to assist in the First World War, she went to Serbia to care for soldiers affected by combat fatigue, bombs, and disease. She also volunteered to care for victims of a typhoid epidemic that hit Serbia and killed almost 800,000 people in two years.
  • In 1918, she worked in a military hospital in France, and later returned to New York to work for the Red Cross.

FOUNDING OF THE HÔPITAL DE L’ENFANT-JÉSUS

  • In 1922, she returned to Quebec and invested her savings to buy a house on the Grande-Alléethe for the foundation of l’Hôpital de l’Enfant Jesus in collaboration with pediatrician Dr. René Fortier and orthopedic specialist Dr. Édouard Samson. She practiced only until 1927 after growing disagreements with the administration.
  • On the outskirts of St-Jean-Baptiste, LeVasseur founded her own clinic for disabled children, named the Hôpital des Enfants malades.
  • In the early 1930s, she decided to open a school for disabled youngsters after campaigning for the establishment of a school for children with disabilities which eventually became the Cardinal-Villeneuve school.
  • During the Second World War, she was appointed to examine female recruits for the Canadian Army at the Québec City Armory. This was her last known medical mission.

HONOURS

  • To honor Irma LeVasseur’s golden jubilee and all her achievements, the Québec Cercle des femmes universitaires organized celebrations in her recognition.
  • Other than this tribute, her initiatives to help the sick and disabled children went largely unacknowledged during her lifetime.
  • She became more and more isolated and became a patient of the Roy-Rousseau clinic at the Hôpital Saint-Michel Archange from 1957 to 1958. She died six years later, alone and in poverty.
  • In the 1980s, her contribution to children’s medicine was finally acknowledged. The Mont Irma-LeVasseur in the Charlesbourg district of Québec City, an auditorium at the Hôpital de l’Enfant-Jésus, the Pavillon Irma-LeVasseur at the Cégep François-Xavier Garneau junior college, streets in Québec City and Montréal, a park in Outremont, and a scholarship sponsored by the Québec Secrétariat à la condition féminine were named after her.
  • A sculpture symbolizing her work was erected near the entrance to the local community services centre in the Limoilou district of Québec City in 2009.

​Irma LeVasseur Worksheets

This is a fantastic bundle which includes everything you need to know about ​Irma LeVasseur across 22 in-depth pages. These are ready-to-use ​Irma LeVasseur worksheets that are perfect for teaching students about ​Irma LeVasseur who was the first French-Canadian female doctor and founder of the Hôpital Sainte-Justine in Montréal and the Hôpital de l’Enfant-Jésus in Québec City.

Complete List Of Included Worksheets

  • Irma LeVasseur Facts
  • Doctors’ Equipment
  • Doctors Have Specialties!
  • Pediatrics
  • Irma’s Timeline
  • Women Before
  • Women After
  • Modern Pediatrician
  • Doctor Appreciation
  • Remarkable Women
  • Find the Doctor

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Use With Any Curriculum

These worksheets have been specifically designed for use with any international curriculum. You can use these worksheets as-is, or edit them using Google Slides to make them more specific to your own student ability levels and curriculum standards.

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