Matilda J. Clerk

Matilda Johanna Clerk
Matilda J. Clerk, Edinburgh, 1949
Born	Matilda Johanna Clerk (1916-03-02)2 March 1916 Larteh, Gold Coast
Died	27 December 1984(1984-12-27) (aged 68) Accra, Ghana
Nationality	British subject (1916-1957) Ghanaian (1957-1984)
Education	Achimota School University of Edinburgh (MBChB) London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine (DTMH)
Occupation	Medical doctor Science educator
Known for	Second Ghanaian woman in medicine Empowerment of women in Ghana Public health advocacy
Parent(s)	Nicholas Timothy Clerk (father) Anna Alice Meyer (mother)
Relatives	Clerk family Emmanuel Charles Quist (uncle)
Awards	Gold Coast Medical Scholar

Matilda Johanna Clerk (2 March 1916 - †27 December 1984) was a medical pioneer and science educator in the Gold Coast and West Africa as well as the second Ghanaian woman to become an orthodox medicine-trained physician. Clerk was also the first Ghanaian woman in any field to be awarded an academic merit scholarship for university education abroad. Her contemporary was Susan de Graft-Johnson (née Ofori-Atta), Ghana's first female physician. Both were early advocates of maternal health, paediatric care and public health in Ghana. For a long time after independence in 1957, Clerk and de Graft-Johnson were the only two women doctors in Ghana. By breaking the glass ceiling in medicine, they were an inspiration to a generation of post-colonial Ghanaian female doctors at a time the field was still a male monopoly and when the vast majority of women worldwide had very limited access to biomedicine and higher education. Pundits in the male-dominated medical community in that era described her as "the beacon of emancipation of Ghanaian womanhood."