The capital city has been bustling with activity these past few days due to the examination of female imperial physicians.
Many doctors in the capital and the families of various mansions could come to the Imperial Medical Academy to observe and learn about this examination for female imperial physicians by formally registering.
Li Mai's superb medical skills and strong ability to control the situation earned the recognition and high praise of everyone present over the three days.
Even the Emperor, Empress, Empress Dowager, Crown Prince, and Crown Princess personally witnessed the first and third days of the assessment.
Seeing that the female doctors from various places were indeed very skilled and promising, the emperor remarked that if it weren't for Li Mai's suggestion, he would never have known that his Song Kingdom had so many women with such excellent medical skills.
In the end, the female doctor Shu recruited twenty-one female doctors. Li Mai divided them into four departments based on their medical expertise. The attending physicians who would be on duty in the outpatient clinic and the attending physicians who would be on house calls would be selected from these twenty-one people on a rotating basis.
Meanwhile, Li Mai selected twelve women from the remaining fifty-odd people who failed the exam to stay as female physicians in the Shu Kingdom. They were assigned to four departments to assist several female imperial physicians in treating patients, and their duties were equivalent to those of modern nurses.
During their time working here, in addition to earning a monthly salary, they can also improve their medical skills through continuous learning and be promoted to female imperial physicians.
The emperor approved of Li Mai's approach.
Looking at the remaining female physicians who had not been selected, the emperor waved his hand and ordered Li Mai to select ten more people to become apprentices of the other twenty-one female imperial physicians and learn medical skills.
He was willing to allocate more money and courtyards for these female doctors to live in and train female imperial physicians.
As a result, of the more than seventy female physicians who came to the Imperial Medical Academy for the assessment, forty-three were ultimately retained, which is more than half of the total number.
This also gave doctors from all over the country a chance to bring glory to their ancestors. Female doctors in Chengdu were selecting imperial physicians from all over the country. How far away is the selection of male imperial physicians?
Li Mai hadn't expected the emperor to be such a good person. She believed that once these people were trained, the medical field and the status of women in the Song Dynasty would improve significantly.
These women were the first female imperial physicians, and she believed that this profession would be passed down from generation to generation.
The emperor also reminded Limai that he had heard her daughter was also studying medicine and could follow in her footsteps in the future.
After the emperor's reminder, Li Mai also began to think about this. However, whether Zhu Zhu would enter the Imperial Hospital as a physician in the future depended on her own decision.
Seeing the emperor's high regard for them, Li Mai made even stricter changes to the examination rules and regulations for female imperial physicians and their daily conduct, especially regarding their character. If any problem arose, they had to be dismissed and kicked out of the Imperial Medical Academy.
She had emphasized this point during the meeting when the female physicians first started their shifts; she insisted on regulating them with the standards of a senior official.
After another month of spending time with the female imperial physicians in Shu, Li Mai gained a general understanding of them and selected chief physicians for the four departments. These four people would manage the departments and other staff when she was not in the capital.
Of course, this time, Li Mai also brought Chu Yan into the Imperial Hospital to become an imperial physician. He left Chu Yan in the Women Physicians' Academy as his assistant to the deputy head of the academy. When Li Mai was not in the capital, Chu Yan would help him manage the Women Physicians' Academy. This position was also obtained through the emperor, and the monthly salary was also given by the emperor.
After all these things were arranged, the New Year arrived.
This year, my family spent the New Year in Beijing.
After several busy months, Li Mai could finally breathe a sigh of relief when the Chinese New Year arrived.
After the New Year, Yanbao and Yubao will be five years old, Zhuzhu will be nine, Limai will be twenty-five, and Zhou Quan will be twenty-seven.
Li Mai became a female celebrity with a great influence in the history of the Song Dynasty. At the beginning of the year when she was twenty-four years old, she was appointed by the emperor as the first female imperial physician in the Imperial Medical Academy of the Song Dynasty, and held the official position of deputy head. In October of the same year, she personally established the Shu, the first female physician in the Imperial Medical Academy of the Song Dynasty.
Such a young and promising woman, such a pioneering figure, was naturally recorded in the annals of the Song Dynasty by its historians.
A few years later, at the behest of the newly enthroned emperor (now the crown prince), a biographical account of Li Mai's life was compiled, called "The Biography of the Female Imperial Physician Li Mai," to publicize her deeds.
The new emperor, Song Zhen (former crown prince)
More and more people also learned that this famous female imperial physician had another identity: the founder and owner of the Li Family Trading Company.
People praise Li Mai and teach their children to learn from her perseverance and hard work in building something from nothing.
Learn about her hardships and sacrifices as a destitute peasant woman who dug up and sold medicinal herbs, apprenticed to learn medicine, and eventually became the first female imperial physician in the Song Dynasty.
Learn from her journey of starting a business, from her husband being paralyzed and her in-laws being poor, to curing her husband and establishing a business to lead her in-laws to prosperity.
In the decades following Li Mai, a number of outstanding women emerged in the history of Song State who were influenced by Li Mai, and they all received respect and praise from all walks of life.
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