National reforms allowed women to earn degrees at Scottish universities from 1892. Soon after, St Andrews created a new medical school, which would see the first women medical students graduate with an MBChB in 1905.

Elizabeth Garrett (1836–1917) was the first woman to matriculate at St Andrews in 1862. She was blocked from pursuing an MD degree by the Senate. Undeterred, she continued her studies in London, receiving her medical licence in 1865.

Marion Gilchrist (1864–1952) was the first woman to graduate with a medical degree in Scotland. In 1890, she received a Lady Literate in Arts, the only qualification offered to women at St Andrews, before pursuing an MBCM at Glasgow in 1894.

Agnes Forbes Blackadder (1875–1964) was the first female MA graduate from St Andrews in 1895. She would later receive an MBChB from Glasgow in 1898 and an MD in 1901.

In 1897, the Bute Medical School was founded in St Andrews. The following year, it was affiliated with University College Dundee, forming a conjoint medical school. This allowed St Andrews to confer MBChB degrees. In 1905, the first three women graduated in medicine at St Andrews.

Elizabeth H B MacDonald (1880–1969) would go on to complete an MD at St Andrews in 1907. She set up her own private practice in New Zealand in 1908.

Jessie Balsillie (1881–1940) became a Maternity and Child Welfare Officer at Stoke-on-Trent.  

Little is known of Alice Jean Donaldson’s (b. 1878) career after her degree.

In 1905, efforts by women to gain medical degrees from St Andrews paid off. These developments were linked to the creation of a new medical school and the MBChB degree.

Agnes Forbes Blackadder, University of St Andrews Libraries and Museums