Dr. Laura Ewing Reading, a progressive physician, established the Queen Anne’s County Hospital in Centreville in 1910. Within weeks of the facility’s opening on October 1 in the Coursey House on Commerce Street in Centreville, the institution had treated thirty patients, the Evening Journal Reported. This pioneer woman practitioner on the Upper Eastern Shore reported some difficulties, according to the Women’s Medical Journal in 1911, but the editors trusted the doctor to surmount all difficulties.
Advocating for rural county hospitals, Dr. Reading delivered remarks before the State Medical Society, declaring that country hospitals for the local treatment of patients were critical. According to the Journal of the American Medical Association, Dr. Reading said there were three reasons to establish a country hospital: to train students; to compel country physicians to same up-to-date, and give people in the country every facility to prevent unnecessary suffering.
Laura Ewing was born in Queen Anne’s County on April 6, 1850, the daughter of Samuel and Mary Clendening Ewing. After attending public and private schools in Queen Anne’s County, she graduated from the Woman’s Medical College of Baltimore in 1885. In 1890 Dr. Ewing married Captain Herbert H. Reading, a retired British Army Officer, and in 1895 she established a practice in Hillsborough County, FL. According to the Tampa Tribune, the physician was the third woman to pass the Florida State Medical Exam. Dr. Reading practiced in the Tampa area between 1895 and 1905.
In 1905, the Reading Family returned to Queen Anne’s County. According to the Tampa Tribune, she established an office in Centreville, treating patients until she retired in 1915 at the age of 65. By 1925 the Family was back in Tampa. Dr. Laura E. Reading died May 12, 1940
Dr. Laura Ewing Reading, an early women medical doctor, died at Tampa on May 13, 1940.
Reflections on Delmarva's Past 