Celebrating Trailblazing Women in Health and STEM Fields

At NNT, we’re inspired daily by the incredible contribution that frontline workers make to our community. It’s one reason why we’ve chosen to name our scrubs after industry trailblazers who have made an important impact in healthcare. From household names to modern game-changers, discover the women we’re honoured to recognise through our most loved scrub styles and share their inspirational stories.

Florence Nightingale (1820–1910)

The celebrated British nurse and statistician is credited as being the founder of modern nursing. Nightingale’s exceptional work became known during the Crimean War when, in 1854, she travelled to care for the wounded at Constantinople. Here, she significantly reduced mortality rates by radically improving care and hygiene standards. The posting also saw Nightingale earn her now famous nickname, “The Lady with the Lamp”, as she made her rounds at night giving individual care to soldiers far from home. On her return to England, she continued to transform the health care system more broadly, collecting and presenting data on her findings and writing numerous reports and books on the subject. In fact, Nightingale was so skilled with numbers and data that she was elected as the first woman member of the Royal Statistical Society in 1858. She continued to teach nurses and advocate for safe nursing practices until her death in 1910.

Her name is acknowledged in our best-selling Next-Gen Antibacterial Nightingale Scrub Top.

Elizabeth Garrett Anderson (1836–1917)

London-born Elizabeth Garrett Anderson was the first female physician to qualify in England despite extreme opposition. She is known to have paved the way for women’s medical education in the UK. Early in her career, Anderson applied to every medical school in the country but was denied a place due to her sex. Undeterred, she studied privately to take the Society of Apothecaries examination and qualified, becoming the first woman in Britain to obtain a license to practice medicine. However, the Society then changed its rules in order to ban any further women, which remained in place for the next 12 years. Anderson was determined to gain an official medical degree, so taught herself French and relocated to Paris to study medicine at the Sorbonne University. In 1870, she became the first woman in France to achieve a medical degree. The pioneering physician went on to co-found the first teaching hospital in Britain staffed by women. She was also active in politics and the suffragette movement and was elected mayor of Aldeburgh in 1908, becoming the first woman mayor in England.

Her name is acknowledged in our newly released Anderson Scrub Dress.

Marie Curie (1867–1934)

The iconic Polish-born scientist received two Nobel Prizes in her remarkable career for pioneering work relating to radiation and radioactivity. She remains the only person ever to win these Prizes in both Physics and Chemistry and the first woman to be awarded a Nobel Prize. Along with her husband, Pierre Curie, she announced the discovery of two new elements, radium and polonium, in 1898. After his death, she continued their joint work and was appointed to his position of Chair of Physics at the Sorbonne University in Paris – the first woman to be named as a professor there. During World War 1, Curie set up radiology medical units near battle lines to allow X-rays to be taken of the wounded, treating over one million soldiers through the project. After the war, the scientist conducted the first studies into radiation being used to treat tumours. She founded both the Curie Institute in Paris and Warsaw, both of which remain major centres for medical research today. She died at the age of 66 from aplastic anaemia, a rare condition believed to have been contracted from her long-term exposure to radiation through her trailblazing work.

Her name is acknowledged in our enduringly popular Next-Gen Antibacterial Curie Scrub Pant.

Elizabeth Blackburn

Born in Hobart, Tasmania, Dr Elizabeth Blackburn was inspired by both a love of animals and the work of Marie Curie to pursue a career in science. It’s a career that has seen her receive almost every major award in the field, including the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 2009. Blackburn discovered that telomeres – the caps at the ends of chromosomes – have a particular DNA and are essential for preserving genetic information. She then co-discovered the enzyme telomerase, an enzyme that maintains the length of telomeres. Her extensive research offers both hope for the treatment of cancer and clues to cellular ageing. Blackburn is now based in the US, where she is undertaking research at the University of California San Francisco. She was Australia’s first woman Nobel laureate.

Her name is acknowledged in our newest scrub top design, the Blackburn Mandarin Collar Scrub Top.

Tracy Westerman

Dr Tracy Westerman is a proud Nyamal woman from the Pilbara region of Western Australia. She is recognised as a world leader in Aboriginal mental health, cultural competency and suicide prevention and has spent over two decades working to reduce the burden of mental ill health and suicide in Aboriginal communities. In 2003, she became the first Aboriginal person to complete a combined Masters/PhD in Clinical Psychology. Dr Westerman is credited with developing unique psychological tests, Aboriginal mental health assessment models, training and community intervention programs. She has trained more than 40,000 practitioners across Australia since 2000. She was awarded Western Australia’s Australian of the Year Award in 2018 and a Member of the Order of Australia in 2021 for significant service to the Indigenous community in mental health and suicide prevention.

Her name is acknowledged in our game changing Westerman Jogger.

While we’re exceptionally proud to recognise these remarkable stories, we’re also inspired by the passion and professionalism shown by our healthcare workers every single day. Using feedback from the frontline, we design our scrubs to be functional and fit-for-purpose while making you feel good, so you can focus on the important work you do. Shop our industry-leading selection right here.