DUANE
Duane's take
Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll do my best to do it justice. Born in Denton County on February 3, 1881, Claudia Potter came into the world as one of eight children — daughter of William Thomas Carr and Laura Elmira Smith Potter. Right from the start, you get the sense this was somebody who wasn't going to be counted out just because the numbers weren't in her favor.
And she proved that early. When Claudia Potter graduated from the University of Texas Medical Branch in 1904, she was the only woman in a class of twenty-three. Not one of a few — the only one.
And across the entire history of that Medical Department, she was only the sixth woman to earn that degree. Six. You could seat them all at one dinner table and still have room for the bread basket.
After graduation, she completed an internship at John Sealy Hospital in Galveston, then worked as a physician in San Antonio for a year. Then 1906 arrives, and Dr. Arthur C.
Scott hires her — and with that, Claudia Potter steps into territory nobody had mapped for a woman yet. She became the first woman to serve as a line physician for the Gulf, Colorado and Santa Fe Railway. First woman.
She also became the first to serve as an anesthetist for the Temple Sanitarium. Now, her initial salary for all of this was four hundred and twenty dollars a year, plus room and board. Her male counterparts received considerably more.
The marker doesn't soften that, and neither will I. But here's the thing about Claudia Potter — she didn't just hold the ground she'd claimed. She expanded it.
Her peers came to regard her as the first full-time anesthesiologist in the entire state of Texas. And she was the first to administer nitrous oxide by machine — a genuine first in the history of how medicine was practiced here. During her tenure she trained many nurse anesthetists, and she helped develop the Temple Sanitarium, which became Scott and White Hospital, into what the marker calls an outstanding surgical center.
Forty-one years she gave to that work. Forty-one years. She retired from Scott and White in 1947, widely respected, her specialty thoroughly mastered.
She died in 1970. One of eight children from Denton County — and the first of her kind in more ways than Texas had ever seen.
What the marker says
Born in Denton County on February 3, 1881, Claudia Potter was one of eight children of William Thomas Carr and Laura Elmira Smith Potter. Claudia Potter graduated from the University of Texas Medical Branch in 1904, the only woman in a class of 23, and only the sixth woman to graduate from the Medical Department. After an internship at John Sealy Hospital in Galveston, Dr. Potter worked as a physician in San Antonio for a year. Hired in 1906 by Dr. Arthur C. Scott, Dr. Potter was the first woman to serve as a line physician for the Gulf, Colorado and Santa Fe Railway, and as an anesthetist for the Temple Sanitarium. Her initial salary was $420 a year, plus room and board, much less than her male counterparts received. Dr. Potter was regarded by her peers as the first full time anesthesiologist in Texas, and was the first to administer nitrous oxide by machine. During her tenure, she trained many nurse anesthetists, and helped to develop Temple Sanitarium (Scott and White Hospital) into an outstanding surgical center. Dr. Potter excelled in her medical speciality and was widely respected. She retired from Scott and White in 1947 after 41 years of service, and died in 1970. (1997)