Dr. Margaret Cleaves First Club President, 1885-86

Our first club president was a pioneer in the field of internal radiotherapy otherwise known as brachytherapy. She was not a surgeon or a radiologist but rather an “electrotherapeutist” who experimented with treatments using radium and electricity. She was very well known in her time and perused a prolific academic career

Margaret Cleaves was born in rural Iowa in 1848, the third of seven children. In 1870 she matriculated into the first class of the University of Iowa’s Medical Department. She earned her medical degree in 1873 and in 1885 she was appointed to the University Medical Department’s examining committee, “perhaps the first woman to serve in that capacity in the United States.” The same year she helped to found the Des Moines Women’s Club and was elected the first president of our organization.

She traveled to New York (1887) and Paris (1888) to study electrotherapy. Relocating to New York City in 1890, she established the “New York Electro- Therapeutic Clinic, Laboratory, and Dispensary” in 1895.

Cleaves continued her illustrious medical career by teaching, clinical practice, and writing until her death in 1917. She pioneered techniques in gynecologic brachytherapy (internal treatment of cancers with radiation), a technique that saved the lives of millions of women, though her contributions are largely forgotten today.

From: Classics in Brachytherapy, Margaret Cleaves Introduces Gynecologic Brachytherapy, by Jesse N. Aronowitz, Shoshana V. Aronowitz, Roger F. Robinson (No. 6 2007 p 293-297)