Born into the Omaha Tribe in Nebraska Territory, Susan's father urged his children to be educated in white man's schools. Susan graduated from Women's Medical College of Pennsylvania, valdictorian of her class in 1869 and the first Native American to earn a medical degree. She worked among her native people, doctoring, educating, and leading social reform. She led temperance campaigns on the reservation, helped advance sanitation practices, and often fought financial and legal issues for her tribal people. Before her death in 1915, she had raised money for the first 'modern' hospital on the Omaha and Winnebago reservations. The building is now a small museum in Walthill, Nebraska. (Smithsonian Magazine, March 2017) Joe Starita has written a biography of Susan LeFlesche Picotte's life, published in 2016: "A Warrior of the People".