Wakefield-Paillet was the first African-American woman to graduate from medical school and to practice medicine in Louisiana.
[1] Her father was a state senator from 1877 to 1879, and an older brother, Adolph J. Wakefield, served as Clerk of Court for Iberia Parish between 1884 and 1888.
[6][3] She earned her license from the Louisiana state medical board that same year.
[7] Later, she became the first African American woman in the state to work as a physician, when she opened her own medical practice in New Orleans by 1898.
[8] In 1900, she moved to San Francisco, where she was married to Joseph Oscar Paillet.