For many people, Clémence Everard is simply the name of a stop. Yet it pays tribute to a woman who helped shape the history of Belgian medicine. Just a stone’s throw from Erasmus hospital, this choice is anything but a coincidence. 

In 1886, Clémence Everard starts at ULB. At that time, women are still the exception there. And medical school is simply not considered a place for them. 

But another pioneer, Isala Van Diest, has paved the way a few years earlier. After earning her medical degree abroad, she succeeds in having it recognised in Belgium. Thanks to that breakthrough, Clémence Everard is able to study medicine. 

Seven years later, she becomes the first woman in Belgium to graduate in medicine, surgery, and obstetrics with high honours, no less. The newspapers hail it as a historic achievement. 

Clémence Everard opens a medical practice in Brussels while carrying out research on white blood cells. She publishes several scientific papers with Jean Demoor, whom she later marries. Like many women of her time, however, her career gradually gives way to family life. 

Today, her name welcomes you at the terminus of line 74. A reminder that, generations ago, one woman dared to follow a path that many still believed was reserved for men.