Women in Medicine: A Celebration of Their Work

Margaret Conrad is Canada Research Chair in Atlantic Canada Studies at
the University of New Brunswick. She is the author of Atlantic Canada: A
Region in the Making, and co-author of Intimate Relations: Family and
Community in Planter Nova Scotia, 1759–

After seeing Ted Grant’s book Doctors’ Work: The Legacy of Sir
William Osler (2003), Jennnifer Mieres, Director of Nuclear Cardiology
at North Shore University Hospital in Manhassset, New York, suggested
that he produce a volume documenting women’s work in the field of
medicine. Grant, an award-winning photojournalist, took up the challenge
and collaborated with photographer Sandy Carter to produce this tribute
to female physicians, surgeons, midwives, technicians, therapists,
assistants, and researchers, who constitute 80 percent of the
health-care workers in North America.

The book consists of stunning black-and-white photographs taken of
women on the job in hospitals, doctor’s offices, and medical centres,
located primarily in Cambridge, Montreal, New York, Phoenix, and
Victoria. A foreword by Mieres provides a brief outline of the context
in which women, who have a long history of curing and caring, were
excluded from the medical profession in the 19th century and gradually
fought their way back in. Judith Finlayson’s lucid survey of women’s
involvement in medicine in the North Atlantic world since ancient times
is a useful primer for anyone unaware of women’s contribution to the
field. Although the narrative is dominated by the American
experience—we learn much more about female “firsts” in the United
States (for example, Elizabeth Blackwell, Clara Barton, Mary Edwards
Walker, and Rebecca Lee) than about their counterparts
elsewhere—mention is made of Canadian medical pioneers Emily Stowe,
Jennie Trout, and Augusta Stowe-Gullen, and of European “greats”
such as Hildegard of Bingen, Florence Nightingale, and Marie Curie.
Inspirational quotations, photographic technical notes, and a selected
bibliography round out this well-conceived and beautifully presented
volume, a welcome celebration of women on the front lines of life and
death in North America.