Susan LaFlesche Picotte Memorial Hospital honors Susan LaFlesche Picotte, the first Native American woman physician. Born to Mary Gale and Iron Eye, also known as Joseph La Flesche, the last traditionally recognized chief of the Omaha tribe, she studied at the Elizabeth Institute for Young Women in New Jersey, the Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute in Virginia, and The Woman’s Medical College of Pennsylvania, where she graduated first in her class in 1889. She returned to the Omaha Reservation and served Native American and white communities as a physician, civic leader, Native American rights activist, and advocate of public health and sanitation. Despite a painful disease that weakened her own health, she was known for keeping a lighted lamp in her window to welcome patients at night. In 1913, she achieved her goal of establishing a hospital to serve Walthill and the surrounding area. The building later housed the Susan La Flesche Picotte Center, was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1988, and was named a National Historic Landmark in 1993.