"If society will not admit of a woman's free development, then society must be remodeled."

Today, February 3rd, is the 201st birthday of Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell, the very first woman in the United States to earn a medical degree.  Dr. Blackwell was famously allowed to attend medical school as a joke.  She had applied to a number of medical schools, only to be told that medicine was a profession that was neither meant for or suitable for women.  She applied to Geneva Medical College (now known as Norton College of Medicine at SUNY Upstate Medical University).  Apparently the faculty asked the other medical students to vote on whether to accept her or not (the stipulation was that the vote had to be unanimous).  The students voted for her acceptance as a funny way to get back at the faculty.  Dr. Blackwell entered medical school with the 1847 class and graduated in 1849 (during those days, medical school consisted of a one year course of study that was repeated in the second year).  The faculty and students eventually came around, and when the dean of the medical school awarded Dr. Blackwell her diploma, he stood up and bowed to her.

 
Dr. Blackwell encountered prejudice throughout her career, and later left the United States to continue her training in Europe.  There, while caring for an infant with opthalmia neonatorum, she accidentally contaminated her own eye and contracted the infection.  Unfortunately, she became blind in that eye, which forced her to abandon her goal of becoming a surgeon.  However, surgery's loss was the rest of medicine's gain.  Dr. Blackwell would become a passionate advocate for social justice, women's health, and pediatrics for the rest of her distinguished career.
 
Dr. Blackwell would later return to the United States, where she founded the New York Infirmary for Women and Children with her younger sister, Emily Blackwell (who incidentally was the third woman to graduate from a U.S. medical school).  Both Drs. Blackwell focused on women’s health, pediatrics, and social justice.  National Women Physicians Day was established just a few years ago to honor Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell and all women in medicine.

If you would like to learn more about Drs. Elizabeth and Emily Blackwell, I highly recommend Janice Nimura's book, The Sisters Blackwell, published last year.  We are thrilled to be hosting Ms. Nimura for our hospital's celebration of National Women Physicians Day later today!

I have posted each year about the growing number of women in medicine every year on National Women Physicians Day (in fact, one of my most popular posts of all time was "Do we need a National Women Physicians Day in 2018).  While the culture in medicine is changing slowly (at a snail's pace really), it is changing for the better.  Yet, there is still a lot of work to be done.  We need more women on the podium at national society meetings, more women on editorial boards and in medical society leadership.  We need more women in leadership positions at medical schools, hospitals, and academic medical centers.

Today, let us congratulate, recognize, and celebrate all women in medicine.  And let us re-commit to increasing diversity, equity, and inclusion in medicine.  I can't think of a better way of celebrating and honoring Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell and her contributions to our profession.