Ruth Marie Bain was born in 1919 in Normangee, Texas, the seventh of nine children. The family later moved to Centerville, Texas where she graduated from high school as class Valedictorian in 1936. She earned a bachelor of arts in Chemistry from the Texas State College for Women, now Texas Women's University, in 1939. She went on to attend the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston where she earned her degree as a medical doctor in 1942. Bain completed her internship at St. Louis Hospital in St. Louis, Missouri and her residency at Brackenridge Hospital. Her first job as a doctor was with the University of Texas Student Health Center from 1947-1950. In 1950, she went on to establish a private practice in Family Medicine in Austin.
Over the years, Dr. Bain has devoted much of her free time to a number professional and civic organizations. In 1957, she was honored as the Soroptimist International Club Outstanding Women of the Year. She served as secretary-treasurer of the Travis County Medical Society from 1958-1961 and then as its first women president from 1962-1963. In 1973, Bain was appointed Clinical Director of the Family Practice Residency Program in Austin. This led to an appointment as Clinical Assistant Professor at the UT Health Sciences Center in San Antonio in 1978. In 1975, she was voted one of five Outstanding Women of the Year by the Austin American-Statesman. Other civic activiities include Past President of the Austin Zonta Club, as well as a board member of the YMCA, the Austin Council for Retarded Children, the Central Texas Comprehensive Health Planning Commission and the Human Opportunities Corporation.
More recently, Dr. Bain has been a member of the Texas Academy of Family Physicians, on the Board of Directors for the Texas Medical Foundation as well as the Travis County Medical Society Foundation, a member of the State Board of Medical Examiners, and served as a Medical Discipline and Alternate Delegate to the American Medical Association from 1988-1992. She was president of the Texas Medical Association from 1982-1983. In September, 1990, Bain was elected to the Central Texas Women's Hall of Fame. In 1991, following double bypass surgery, she retired from private practice and has since scaled back on many of her organizational commitments. She is an avid golfer and has a private pilot's license.
Correspondence, certificates, printed material, speeches, notes, clippings and photographs document the professional and civic activities of Dr. Ruth Marie Bain, Austin family medicine physician for over forty years. The collection is arranged into five series. The first, Organizations, contains primarily correspondence related to either Bain's membership/board appointments or, as in the case of the Travis County Medical Society, various medical opinions held by the organization. The largest amount of material is contained in the second series, Honors and Awards. It contains a relatively large amount of congratulatory correspondence regarding several of Bain's many accomplishments as a leading female physician in the Austin community from the 1950s through the mid-1980s. Of special note within the third series, Correspondence, is a Christmas card and one inaugural invitation sent by President and Mrs. Ronald Reagan. Creative Works, the fourth series, is comprised of fourteen speeches and notes which fully document Dr. Bain's opinions and positions regarding the health care profession.
AF - Biography - Bains, Ruth
Travis County Medical Journal (1 box) - Periodicals
Clippings, Biographical Material - AF-Biography
2 Travis County Medical Society Directories - General Collection
This record series is indexed under the following controlled access subject terms.
None.
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Ruth Bain Papers (AR. 1991. 005). Austin History Center, Austin Public Library, Austin, Texas.
Donor #: DO/1987/066
Donation Date: 1988-1991, 1995
Preliminary processing and inventory by Tim Wilder/1992 December.
Final processing, finding aid and encoding by Susan Rittereiser/2010 August.
Contains correspondence and biographical material regarding a memorial lecture series honoring Walter S. Moore, M.D. who succumbed to an automobile accident on December 14, 1968.
Correspondence and membership contribution receipts.
Correspondence, notes and statistical reports on the cost of the DESRD program.
Contains items sent to congressmen and a Christmas card from President Ronald Reagan.
Includes a 50th Presidential Inaugural invitation.
"Medical Ethics in a Changing World", Dallas Medical Journal, March-April, 1981