25/10/2025
After 90 years, Harvard University clarifies detail about Dr. Fe del Mundo.
According to the Harvard Center for the History of Medicine, their archives confirm that Fe del Mundo graduated with a medical degree in 1933 from the University of the Philippines College of Medicine in Manila.
Del Mundo arrived in Boston, USA in 1936 as a government scholar under the administration of President Manuel Quezon. At that time, Harvard Medical School did not admit female students into its Doctor of Medicine (MD) program, and since Del Mundo had already completed her medical degree in the Philippines, she was not classified as a “medical student.”
Harvard clarified that women were not accepted as MD students during that era, but emphasized that Del Mundo completed graduate work at Harvard Medical School. She was considered a graduate student, not a medical student, they added.
University records also refuted the claim that Del Mundo was the first Asian student at Harvard, pointing out that there were already 58 other Asian students enrolled in different programs during the 1936 academic year.
However, Del Mundo was the first Asian woman to set foot in Harvard Medical School as a graduate student. It was only in 1945 that Harvard began admitting female students into its official medical program.
Despite these clarifications, Harvard continues to recognize Fe del Mundo as the first woman to be associated with the Harvard Medical School at a time when educational opportunities for women were extremely limited.
During World War II, Del Mundo returned to the Philippines to care for the children of foreign nationals and Filipino soldiers imprisoned by the Japanese. She personally sheltered and cared for 456 children and 26 young adults in a facility she helped build.
She courageously negotiated with the Japanese using their own language, appealing to their conscience and compassion: “You have conquered this country, but the rights of these children are the same as the rights of Japan’s youth. Have compassion and mercy for the innocent.”
Because of this, Del Mundo was granted permission to build a facility for the children. After the war, she established the first pediatric hospital in the Philippines, focused solely on the health and well-being of Filipino children. Her drive came from a personal mission: she had lost several of her siblings in childhood, and she vowed to prevent other Filipino children from dying young. To her, children were the mirror of the country’s future.
Fe del Mundo passed away at the age of 99, unmarried and without children of her own, but she was a mother to thousands of Filipino children. In 2011, she was laid to rest at the Libingan ng mga Bayani.
