Romania B. Pratt was the first Mormon woman to leave Zion for professional medical training in the East.  But she wasn’t the first female to carry a doctor’s bag into the new western territory.  Three European-trained female physicians arrived in Deseret in the 1850s: Vigdis Holt, Netta Anna Cardon and Janet Hardie.

The lack of expertise that all too often prevailed in Deseret was a source of great worry to Brigham Young.  He and other Church leaders also decried the idea of male physicians ministering to the needs of women.  The very thought, states Ms. Waters in her research paper, carried the taint of adultery in their opinion.  Enough women doctors also had to be trained so they could serve their gender and preserve feminine modesty.