Women Physicians and the Cultures of Medicine

This volume examines the wide-ranging careers and diverse lives of American women physicians, shedding light on their struggles for equality, professional accomplishment, and personal happiness over the past 150 years. Leading scholars in the history of medicine chronicle the trials and triumphs of such extraordinary women as Marie Zakrzewska, one of the first female medical graduates in the United States and founder of the New England Hospital for Women and Children; Mary S. Calderone, the courageous and controversial medical director of Planned Parenthood in the mid-twentieth century; and Esther Pohl Lovejoy, who risked her life to bring medical aid and supplies to countries experiencing war, famine, and other catastrophes. Illuminating the ethnic, political, and personal diversity of women physicians, the book reveals them as dedicated professionals who grapple with obstacles and embrace challenges, even as they negotiate with their own health, sexuality, and body images, the needs of their patients, and the rise of the women's health movement. Encompassing the most recent work in the history of women in American medicine, Women Physicians and the Cultures of Medicine will interest students and scholars in history, women's studies, and the history of medicine.''The real value of this book lies in its potential to address women physicians' diversity of experience from multiple disciplinary perspectives in discrete readable essays that may be particularly useful for anyone desiring an introduction to the history of women physicians or women in medicine.''—Sarah W. Tracy, author of Alcoholism in America: From Reconstruction to Prohibition