Status
Available
Publication
Park Row (2022), Edition: First Time Trade, 368 pages
Description
Biography & Autobiography. History. Medical. Nonfiction. HTML:NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER! For fans of Hidden Figures and Radium Girls comes the remarkable story of three Victorian women who broke down barriers in the medical field to become the first women doctors, revolutionizing the way women receive health care. In the early 1800s, women were dying in large numbers from treatable diseases because they avoided receiving medical care. Examinations performed by male doctors were often demeaning and even painful. In addition, women faced stigma from illness�??a diagnosis could greatly limit their ability to find husbands, jobs or be received in polite society. Motivated by personal loss and frustration over inadequate medical care, Elizabeth Blackwell, Elizabeth Garrett Anderson and Sophia Jex-Blake fought for a woman's place in the male-dominated medical field. For the first time ever, Women in White Coats tells the complete history of these three pioneering women who, despite countless obstacles, earned medical degrees and paved the way for other women to do the same. Though very different in personality and circumstance, together these women built women-run hospitals and teaching colleges�??creating for the first time medical care for women by women. With gripping storytelling based on extensive research and access to archival documents, Women in White Coats tells the courageous history these women made by becoming doctors, detailing the boundaries they broke of gender and science to reshape how we receive medical care… (more)
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User reviews
LibraryThing member thornton37814
This book covers many early women doctors in the United States and Great Britain and their contributions to the fight for women to become doctors. Elizabeth Blackwell, Elizabeth Garrett Anderson, and Sophia Jex-Blake are the main focus of the story although many other women in medicine are
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mentioned, particularly when their lives intersected with one of these. Although American progress is mentioned, the main thrust of this book is in England and Scotland, with a brief mention of Ireland toward the end of the book. Higher education institutions and the men who ran them were set against allowing women to enter the profession. When a sympathetic administrator was persuaded to allow admission, it was usually overturned by the students or professors who refused to share facilities with the women or teach them. The author relied on correspondence, published medical histories, biographies--personal and collective, articles, and medical journals for much of the information. Persons interested in the American side of things and Elizabeth Blackwell and her sister should read The Doctors Blackwell: How Two Pioneering Women Brought Medicine to Women -- and Women to Medicine by Janice P. Nimura. Show Less
LibraryThing member LibraryCin
4.25 stars
This is mainly a biography of three of the first women doctors in the mid- to late-19th century, but also a history of the fight for the right of women to become doctors. Elizabeth Blackwell was the first woman in the US to earn an MD, in the mid-1800s. It took a while longer, but Lizzie
Every step of the way took months and years of hard work for these women to be able to earn that MD. With the stereotypes and fears of male doctors, professors, and medical students pushing back with excuses to deny them this. Before the women’s schools were set up, these women had to take classes (many privately, and at a much higher cost), as well as find a placement for clinical practice to gain that experience; very very difficult to do when most hospitals continually turned them down. There were some male doctors (and professors) who were sympathetic and did help out as much as they could.
I’ve left out so much of the struggles! This book is nonfiction, but it reads like fiction. Very readable. Oh, the frustration, though, at the male students, doctors, and professors! They call the women “delicate” and such, but as far as I can tell, the men were the “delicate” ones with their temper tantrums (the phrase entered my head even before she used it in the book!), not able to handle that there are women just as smart and can do the job just as well as they (possibly) could (although I do wonder about some of those men!). And these men were supposed to be trusted to tend to women’s health issues!? Ugh! (Many women at the time avoided, if possible, seeing male doctors for their ailments.) Many of the women students had better grades than the men, but of course, were never really acknowledged for it.
This is mainly a biography of three of the first women doctors in the mid- to late-19th century, but also a history of the fight for the right of women to become doctors. Elizabeth Blackwell was the first woman in the US to earn an MD, in the mid-1800s. It took a while longer, but Lizzie
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Garret was the first in England. Sophia Jax-Blake was not immediately next in the UK, but she worked hard fighting for the right of women to be able to earn that designation; she did get her MD later s well, but she also helped start up two women’s medical schools – in London and Edinburgh. Every step of the way took months and years of hard work for these women to be able to earn that MD. With the stereotypes and fears of male doctors, professors, and medical students pushing back with excuses to deny them this. Before the women’s schools were set up, these women had to take classes (many privately, and at a much higher cost), as well as find a placement for clinical practice to gain that experience; very very difficult to do when most hospitals continually turned them down. There were some male doctors (and professors) who were sympathetic and did help out as much as they could.
I’ve left out so much of the struggles! This book is nonfiction, but it reads like fiction. Very readable. Oh, the frustration, though, at the male students, doctors, and professors! They call the women “delicate” and such, but as far as I can tell, the men were the “delicate” ones with their temper tantrums (the phrase entered my head even before she used it in the book!), not able to handle that there are women just as smart and can do the job just as well as they (possibly) could (although I do wonder about some of those men!). And these men were supposed to be trusted to tend to women’s health issues!? Ugh! (Many women at the time avoided, if possible, seeing male doctors for their ailments.) Many of the women students had better grades than the men, but of course, were never really acknowledged for it.
Show Less
LibraryThing member JanaRose1
This book outlines the stories of the pioneering women in the early 1800's who fought for medical education. These women encountered prejudice and obstacles every step of their journey. Although this book started strong, it quickly bogged down towards the middle. The stories were interesting, but
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after a while everything seemed to blend together. Overall, 2 out of 5 stars. Show Less
LibraryThing member cbl_tn
Journalist Olivia Campbell tells the story of the earliest women who received medical degrees in the United States and the United Kingdom. Campbell follows the paths of three groundbreaking women – Elizabeth Blackwell, the first woman to receive a medical degree in the United States; Elizabeth
Elizabeth Blackwell was the oldest of the three women, and the early chapters of the book focus on her education and early career in New York. The geographical focus shifts to the United Kingdom when Elizabeth Garrett Anderson and Sophia Jex-Blake are brought to the fore, and the focus remains on the United Kingdom after Elizabeth Blackwell moves her practice to England to join forces with the women physicians there.
It's surprising (or maybe it’s not) how quickly the door shut behind Elizabeth Blackwell in the US and Elizabeth Garrett Anderson in the UK to keep other women out of the medical profession. They seem to have found loopholes that quickly closed to prevent other women from enrolling in medical school. These women viewed coed medical education as vital for the status of women physicians to avoid the charge that women’s medical schools were less rigorous than the schools for men. After years of rejection of women applicants to the established medical schools, Elizabeth Blackwell in the US and Sophia Jex-Blake in the UK eventually started medical schools for women, recruiting well-respected male doctors as lecturers for the school.
Inevitably, this book covers some of the same ground as Janice P. Nimura’s The Doctors Blackwell. Nimura’s book is more narrowly focused on the Blackwell sisters, their family, and their careers, while Campbell covers broader territory regarding women’s medical education in the mid-nineteenth century with an emphasis on the United Kingdom.
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Garrett Anderson, the first woman to qualify as a physician in the United Kingdom, and Sophia Jex-Blake, whose persistence in demanding women’s access to medical education eventually opened the doors for women medical students in the United Kingdom.Elizabeth Blackwell was the oldest of the three women, and the early chapters of the book focus on her education and early career in New York. The geographical focus shifts to the United Kingdom when Elizabeth Garrett Anderson and Sophia Jex-Blake are brought to the fore, and the focus remains on the United Kingdom after Elizabeth Blackwell moves her practice to England to join forces with the women physicians there.
It's surprising (or maybe it’s not) how quickly the door shut behind Elizabeth Blackwell in the US and Elizabeth Garrett Anderson in the UK to keep other women out of the medical profession. They seem to have found loopholes that quickly closed to prevent other women from enrolling in medical school. These women viewed coed medical education as vital for the status of women physicians to avoid the charge that women’s medical schools were less rigorous than the schools for men. After years of rejection of women applicants to the established medical schools, Elizabeth Blackwell in the US and Sophia Jex-Blake in the UK eventually started medical schools for women, recruiting well-respected male doctors as lecturers for the school.
Inevitably, this book covers some of the same ground as Janice P. Nimura’s The Doctors Blackwell. Nimura’s book is more narrowly focused on the Blackwell sisters, their family, and their careers, while Campbell covers broader territory regarding women’s medical education in the mid-nineteenth century with an emphasis on the United Kingdom.
Show Less
LibraryThing member Katyefk
I so appreciate these women who did what it took become doctors and healers in spite of so much incredibly vile pushback from male doctors and society. The male doctors were clearly threatened and in the 1870's women were certainly not given much intellectual due. Our world is so different now and
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we still have our own current versions of pushback career and personal sabotage endemic systems. I so appreciate my female and male, well educated doctors. Show Less
LibraryThing member tjsjohanna
I wish I had enjoyed this more. I learned a lot about a couple of the earliest women pioneers in the field of medicine. Unfortunately too often I got mixed up (names were too similar) and the telling of the back story was interspersed with events in a way that confused rather than illuminated. I
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really admire the tenacity with which those early women engaged in the fight to earn a place in medical schools and in medical practice. Show Less
Language
Original language
English
Physical description
368 p.; 7.83 inches
ISBN
0778311988 / 9780778311980