A Century Later

Yale School of Public Health’s official records memorialize Dr. Chenghui Ge (葛成慧 also known as Zen Way Koh) as having earned an MPH in 1924 and DrPH in 1926, noting that “he is the first known public health student from China.” However, that record was incorrect. Dr. Ge was not the first male student to receive that distinction from the then-Department of Public Health at Yale. She was the first Chinese woman.

This discovery, uncovered in 2025 by two Yale students — Qi Yan, a PhD student in the Department of Cellular & Molecular Physiology at YSM, and former visiting medical student Dr. Sunny (Xuezhu) Wang, MD — does more than fix a clerical error. It sheds light on how gender inequities have shaped not only access to education, but how history remembers those who worked in and contributed to the fields of medicine and public health.


Correcting the error, and doing so transparently, signals that the Yale School of Public Health (YSPH) is willing to examine its records and set them right—an example of trust-building in practice — explicit in the school’s strategic plan.

The misclassification traces back to Ge’s attempt to overcome systemic gender barriers. As an aspiring health practitioner, she enrolled in Jiangsu Province’s government-sponsored overseas study examination. Aware of the discrimination women faced, she made a strategic decision to leave the “gender” field on her application blank. She secured the scholarship and formal admission on her own merits. Although government officials learned about her gender identity after her acceptance, Yale’s official records classified her as male—a record that remained unchanged for nearly 100 years.

Ge’s accomplishments reflect other YSPH strategic priorities, including its commitment to educate generations of public health leaders, like Ge. She went on to teach as well, writing textbooks in clinical bacteriology, public health, and midwifery, and later served as president of the Zhejiang Provincial Maternity School. During the Second Sino-Japanese War, Ge relocated to Chongqing and contributed to national efforts in medical education.

Even during times of war, she remained committed to creating pathways to tangibly improve societal wellbeing — an enduring commitment and strategic priority at YSPH. Recognizing the burden on women of balancing personal and work responsibilities, she founded a kindergarten and home economics program. In 1947, she founded Jiading District Central Hospital in her hometown.

Correcting Ge's record — and telling her story — is an act of building the inclusive community YSPH envisions. Her story also underscores the cost of exclusion: when women are erased from history, the field loses both role models and a full understanding of its own roots.

Yan and Wang’s rediscovery of Ge's story emerged through their student-led research, which was sparked by an opportunity to contribute to an issue of Yale Journal of Biology and Medicine (YJBM) on the topic of “history of medicine.” Yan and Wang, who met at Yale, decided to write about Asian women at YSM.

While conducting their research, Yan saw a post about one of the first groups of Chinese women who studied in the United States. She was intrigued by the name of a Yale student she had never heard of, especially because she was familiar with many of the “first” Asian women in medicine at Yale. This curiosity about the mystery Chinese woman prompted her to further investigate. The variations in the romanization of Ge’s name across institutions, combined with her gender misidentification, made her story particularly hard to trace. But by cross-referencing Yale archival documents with Chinese newspapers from Ge’s hometown, Yan and Wang confirmed what was undocumented in English sources and possibly unknown to Yale.

For Yan, an Asian woman in medicine, every chapter of Ge’s life is deeply inspiring. “I want to be someone like her,” she reflected, emphasizing how Ge’s resilience and legacy resonated on both a professional and personal level. She emphasized that through the paper she co-wrote with Wang, Ge became part of a larger collective. Like the other Asian women featured in their work, Ge demonstrated remarkable strength navigating a field where female leadership was scarce. The pair's research is a bridge between history and the present that not only celebrates the achievements of women who came before them but underscores the ongoing need for progress.

Ge’s story, while extraordinary, is not unique. For generations, women in medicine and public health have had to navigate exclusion, conceal their identities, or see their contributions diminished or misattributed. Their achievements were recorded under male names or insufficiently documented.

Correcting Ge’s identity on Yale records is not just about accuracy. It is a belated recognition of an ambitious woman working in public health and medicine. It allows us to fully celebrate pioneers like Ge not only for their professional achievements, but for the barriers they overcame to attain them. This long-overdue correction restores Ge to her rightful place in history as a brave trailblazer who left an incredible legacy.

In bringing Ge’s story to light, Yan and Wang hope to inspire others to continue the work of sharing overlooked histories and honoring each person who has shaped the fields of medicine and public health as we know it today.