The faculties of medicine were one of the first academic institutions to accept women students in late 19th century Spain. However the establishment of the Franco Regime in the 1930s curbed the integration of women in the workplace in general and in academic professions in particular. The dictatorship’s discourse and policies encouraged women to assume the traditional role of wife and mother. In the 1960s Spain transformed from a rural backward country into an urban industrialized society. This socioeconomic change facilitated the gradual incorporation of women into the public sphere. This brought in its wake a gradual augment in women’s presence in the University. The number of women studying medicine increased significantly, but their weight in academic research was negligible. In this paper we analyze the professional narratives of the first women to become members of the faculties of medicine in the region of Castile and Leon. This mostly rural and conservative region was strongly associated with the Franco regime and with its national project of unification. It thus provides a suitable case study to explore the integration of women into medical scientific research in areas where traditional values of the regime prevailed. The story of the region’s first women medical scientists exposes the social, professional and personal barriers they had to overcome. More importantly, analyzing their narratives discloses how they had to negotiate the original sin associated with their ability to establish a career as scientists in a male dominated environment. Our first interviews indicate that a marital connection to another member of the academic stuff is a significant feature of these success stories. This adds another dimension to the original sin of these women related to their position in the scientific community. It naturally obliges them to negotiate its meaning and significance for their scientific careers.