BLOG: A brief history of women in medicine
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A father and son were in a car accident. The father dies and the son is taken to the nearest hospital. In the operating room, a doctor comes in and looks at the little boy and says, “I can’t operate on this boy because he is my son.”
Who is the doctor?
Sometimes I share this riddle with my kids and their friends. More than half of the time they look at me confused and cannot figure out the riddle. They scratch their heads and sometimes ask if the surgeon is the stepfather. Could it be the wrong boy in surgery? They look me in the eye, often after a long day of work at the hospital. They forget that I am a doctor and likely are unaware that, last year, more women graduated from medical school than men.
Yet the history of women in medicine began more than 150 years ago. The story goes that around about 1844, a young woman lay dying of uterine cancer. She confided in her friend, Elizabeth, that perhaps, had a woman cared for her, she may have been spared suffering and embarrassment. She may have been nurtured through her illness instead of experiencing the sterile, impersonal process she experienced at the hands of the men who had cared for her. This honest testament seeded the call to a new vocation for her friend Elizabeth, thus starting a revolution, and shattering a proverbial glass ceiling.
Read the full blog post at Women in Medicine Summit.
For more information:
Krisa Keute, MD, FACP, is an internist and a mother. She can be reached over LinkedIn at Krisa Keute, MD, FACP.
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