The Indomitable Lady Doctors

Jami van Haaften is a librarian and author of An Index to Selected
Canadian Provincial Government Publications for Librarians, Teachers and
Booksellers.

Canada’s “lady doctors” are the subject of this worthwhile collection of biographies. Carlotta Hacker has combined extensive research with a sense of history to present the reader with a sympathetic look at life as it was for women doctors. The Federation of Medical Women of Canada asked the author to research and write this book, which was originally published in hardcover (Clarke Irwin, 1974) as a project of the Federation.

The first woman doctor in Canada found it necessary to disguise herself as a man in order to practise medicine. Dr. Barry was the British Army medical officer and in 1857 was appointed Inspector General of Hospitals in Upper and Lower Canada.

Considering the difficulty of obtaining an education and a medical licence, it is not surprising that many women doctors were also suffragettes. They had to work to gain the recognition and respect that was their due.

In addition to relating the experiences of Canada’s pioneering women doctors, Carlotta Hacker chronicles the development of the schools of medicine. While Toronto’s Ontario Medical College for Women and Kingston’s Women’s Medical College were graduating women doctors in the late 1800s, McGill’s participation did not begin until 1918.

While this may not be a volume one reads from cover to cover, it serves as a necessary reference work on this aspect of Canadian medical history. Photographs, an extensive index, and bibliographic entries in the form of notes add to the worth of Carlotta Hacker’s work.