Dolores Piñero Dr . Dolores Mercedes Piñero , ( 1892 – 1975 ) was one of the first four Puerto Rican women to earn a medical degree . She was also one of the first civilian doctors , and the first Puerto Rican female doctor to serve under contract in the U . S . Army during World War I . During World War I , Piñero helped establish a hospital in Puerto Rico to attend soldiers who had contracted the Swine Flu . Early years . Piñero was born in San Juan , Puerto Rico at a time when the island was still a Spanish colony . There she received her primary and secondary education . Spain ceded Puerto Rico to the United States in accordance with the agreement reached in the 1898 Treaty of Paris , which officially ended the Spanish - American War . Piñero was sent to Boston , Massachusetts where she became fluent in English and continued her college education . In 1913 , she earned her medical degree from the College of Physicians and Surgeons in Boston . Piñero was one of the first four women from Puerto Rico to earn a medical degree . The other three were María Elisa Rivera Díaz and Ana Janer in 1909 , and Palmira Gatell in 1910 . Return to Puerto Rico . After earning her degree , Piñero returned to Puerto Rico and set up her medical and anesthesia practice in what was then the town of Río Piedras ( it is now a section of San Juan ) . In 1917 , with the advent of World War I , the United States approved the Jones - Shafroth Act which conferred U . S . citizenship on Puerto Ricans . Puerto Ricans , with the exception of the women , were eligible for the draft . When the United States entered World War I , the U . S . Army Medical Corps believed that they had enough male physicians to cover their needs . Piñero applied for a position as a contract surgeon only to be turned down . After writing a letter to the Army Surgeon General in Washington , D . C . explaining her intentions , she received a telegram ordering her to report to Camp Las Casas at Santurce , Puerto Rico where she was assigned to the Medical Service Corps of the Army Medical Department . By 1918 , the Army realized that there was a shortage of physicians specializing in anesthesia , a low - salary specialty required in the military operating rooms . Therefore , the Army reluctantly began hiring women physicians as civilian contract employees . Contract physicians , however had little status within the military . They did not wear uniforms and had little authority . On October 1918 , Piñero signed her contract with the Army . In this manner , and at her own insistence , Piñero contributed her professional skills to the war effort . She was re - assigned to the Army General Hospital of Fort Brooke , located in the former Ballajá Barracks ( in the grounds of the Fort San Felipe del Morro ) in Old San Juan . There she worked as an anesthesiologist during the mornings , and in the laboratory during the afternoons . Piñero and four male colleagues received orders to open a 400 - bed hospital in Ponce , Puerto Rico , to care for the patients who had been infected with influenza , known also as " the Swine Flu . " Among the nurses who served in Ponce with Piñero was Rosa González , a noted registered nurse who authored " The Nurses Medical Dictionary " . The Swine Flu had swept through Army camps and training posts around the world , infecting one quarter of all soldiers and killing more than 55 , 000 American troops . After the flu epidemic ended , Piñero was ordered back to the Army base hospital at San Juan . Post World War I . When her contract ended at the close of World War I , Piñero returned to her private practice in Río Piedras . She married Celestino López Pérez and had a son Jose Antonio López Piñero and on March 17 , 1922 , had a daughter named Dolores " Lolin " Piñero - López . Little is known of Piñero ' s later years , with the exception that she was one of the leaders of the local Women ' s Civic Club and that she worked for the Puerto Rico Department of Health . Piñero was also the first Puerto Rican female to be named to the Puerto Rican Medical Examiners Board . Piñero resided with her husband in Monacillo , Rio Piedras , Puerto Rico . She died in 1975 in San Juan , Puerto Rico .