“G” Is for Guignard, Jane Bruce (1876-1963)

“G” Is for Guignard, Jane Bruce (1876-1963). Physician. Born in Aiken County, Guignard moved with her family to Columbia in 1895. With support from her family, she graduated from Women's Medical College in Philadelphia in 1904. After an internship, she returned to Colombia to practice medicine as one of the city's first female physicians. Obstetrics and pediatrics became the cornerstone of Guignard’s fifty-year medical career. After witnessing the “shockingly unsanitary and inconvenient surroundings” that accompanied the delivery of poor babies, she established a small nursing home of her own in the 1920s. She also established a training program for Black midwives. During her career she delivered more than one thousand babies in Richland County. Jane Bruce Guignard devoted much of her career to obstetrics, but her general practice also earned a reputation as a doctor of the people.