Background
Kei Okami was born as Nishida Keiko in Aomori Prefecture in 1858.
岡見 京子
Kei Okami was born as Nishida Keiko in Aomori Prefecture in 1858.
She graduated from the Yokohama Kyoritsu Girls" School in 1878, and then taught English at the Sakurai Girls" School.
She was the first Japanese woman to obtain a degree in Western medicine from a Western university. The couple subsequently traveled to the United States. After four years of study, she graduated in 1889, with Susan Louisiana Flesche Picotte.
She thus became the first Japanese woman to obtain a degree in the Western medicine from a Western university.
After returning to Japan, Kei Okami also worked at the Jikei Hospital (now the Jikei University School of Medicine hospital) at the invitation of Takaki Kanehiro. Then, she opened her own clinic, operating out of her home in Akasaka Tameike, Minato.
Later, she closed the practice, and served as the vice-principal of Shoei Girl"s school (a predecessor of the Shoei Girls" Junior and Senior High School), which was founded by her brother-in-law Kiyomune. In 1897, she opened a small hospital for sick women in partnership with a friend, Mistress
True. She also established a school of nursing in the same premises.
The hospital closed after nine years, as there were very few patients, mostly limited to foreign female preachers. Subsequently, she retired due to breast cancer. A devout Christian, she also participated in missionary work in Japan.