Opportunities for Women - Page 1
8 Opportunities for
Women
Historical overview
Women's health issues
Medicine: a career for women
Doors are open
Admission to medical school
The woman physician: a status
report
Unique challenges for women in
medicine
Financial aid and support sources
HISTORICAL OVERVIEW
A summary of the history of medical education in
the United States reveals the surpris-
ing observation that, in terms of acceptance of
women into medical school, there is no
consistent pattern.
Acceptances of women fluctuated widely until
1970 when a sustained increase
ensued. That the road to women gaining admission
into medical school has been long
and hard may not always be evident. For
example, Johns Hopkins School of Medicine
accepted women with its first medical school
class in 1893 and had more women than
men in their entering class. It should be
noted, however, that this situation is not as
straightforward as it seems. The initial
establishment of this school involved a substantial
endowment from a group of Baltimore-area women
who made their contribution depen-
dent upon the acceptance of women into the
school. However, for the most part, during
the nineteenth century women primarily
participated in health care professions as nurses.
The first American woman medical graduate was
Elizabeth Blackwell, who
received her degree from (the now defunct)
Geneva Medical College in New York in
1849. Prior to that, Harriet Hunt began to
practice medicine in 1835 after gaining pro-
fessional training by serving as an apprentice
to a Boston physician. She had been
repeatedly denied admission into all of the
exclusively male medical schools.
Blackwell's acceptance was followed by a
handful of other women. Those women
who succeeded in getting into medical school
seldom received clinical experience, as
hospitals did not want women treating their
patients. On the other hand, homeopathic
and other nontraditional schools were more
liberal regarding admission of women.
The educational opportunities for women
improved somewhat when Philadelphia's
Quakers established a school in 1850
exclusively for women, Medical College of Penn-
sylvania (which became coeducational in 1969).
This event probably motivated some
eminent and enlightened male physicians in New
York, Boston, and Chicago to con-
tribute money and use their influence to
establish all-women institutions in those three
cities.
Unable to gain admission to U.S. schools,
starting in the 1880s, women in large num-
bers went to such European cities as Paris and
Zurich to secure a first-rate medical educa-
tion. However, the struggle was far from over
after they completed their medical studies
because hospitals would not hire them.
Therefore, Elizabeth Blackwell and her sister
opened a 24-bed infirmary. (She also opened a
medical school, as she was dissatisfied
with the caliber of some of the graduates of
women's colleges who were working for
her.) Some women doctors went west, where they
were welcomed because of the rough
lifestyle in which circumstances often required
prompt treatment of many trauma cases.
User Comments Add a comment…