News, observances, history – Page 91 – watercress words by Dr Aletha

How Women Changed and are Changing Healthcare

The first woman graduate of a United States medical school was born in Bristol England in 1821. Elizabeth Blackwell came to this country as a child and originally had no interest in medicine. But when a dying friend told her, “I would have been spared suffering if a woman had been my doctor”, she found her calling.

By 2022 statistics published by the Kaiser Family Foundation, 47% of United States medical school graduates are women; in some states, over 50% are women. If that trend continues, eventually at least half of all practicing physicians in the United States will be women. Now about one-third are female.

class reunion — My medical school graduating class at our 30th reunion; the original class was larger, 150 students, but the percentage of women was the same as in this photo. (I’m in the pink dress)

I and other women physicians owe a debt to the women who paved the way for us. This post introduces some of them.

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Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell

The first woman graduate of a United States medical school was born in Bristol England in 1821. (thank you, UK readers). Elizabeth Blackwell came to this country as a child and originally had no interest in medicine. But when a dying friend told her, “I would have been spared suffering if a woman had been my doctor”, she found her calling.

She was denied admission to multiple medical schools. The Geneva Medical College of New York submitted her application to the student body for a vote, and, as a joke, they voted to admit her. Well, the joke was on them as she enrolled, completed medical school and graduated in 1849.

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A hospital for and by women

Dr. Blackwell, her sister Dr. Emily Blackwell, and a German physician, Dr. Marie Zakrzewska, opened and administered the New York Infirmary for Women and Children in 1857.

Dr. Emily Blackwell managed the Infirmary for 40 years. Dr. Marie Zakrzewska moved to Boston when she founded the New England Hospital for Women and Children, which trained women physicians and cared for the poor.

Due to failing health, Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell retired from practice in the 1870s.

The Physicians Mom Group (PMG) declared Dr. Blackwell’s birthday on February 3 as National Women Physicians Day. This day celebrates all the significant contributions that women physicians make daily, none of which would have been possible without Elizabeth Blackwell.

Dr.Rebecca Lee Crumpler

Before founding her hospital, Dr.Zakrzewska served as a professor at the New England Female Medical College. That school produced another notable women physician, Dr. Rebecca Lee Crumpler.

Dr. Crumpler graduated in 1864, becoming the first African-American woman to earn an M.D. in the United States. After practicing in Boston, she moved to Virginia where she and other black physicians cared for freed slaves, who otherwise would have had no access to medical care.

In 1883 Dr. Crumpler wrote a book of medical advice for women and children, titled Book of Medical Discourses, one of the earliest medical publications by an African American. Unfortunately, no photos of Dr. Crumpler are known. to exist.

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Dr. Virginia Apgar

More recently, a woman physician’s work has impacted the lives of countless babies and their families. If you have had a baby, or been born within the past 60 years, you benefited from the work of Virginia Apgar, M.D.

She was neither an obstetrician or a pediatrician, but an anesthesiologist. As she observed deliveries of infants she proposed a scale to rate how well a newborn was adapting to life outside the mother.

She considered 5 factors:

heart rate
respiratory (breathing) rate,
muscle tone,
reflexes, and
color-pink (warm) or blue(cold)

And assigned each a score- 0, 1, or 2, at 1 minute of age, and again at 5 minutes.

So a newborn had a potential score as low as 0 and as high as 10.

The higher the score, referred to as the Apgar score, the more likely the baby was healthy and would do well. The lower the score meant the baby was in trouble, and needed intensive medical attention.

After testing the use of the rating scale over several years, doctors starting using it routinely; so for the past 50-60 years almost all babies have been “graded” with an Apgar score at birth. The Apgar score is used widely throughout the world.

Dr. Apgar, who played violin and cello in her college orchestra, was appointed the first full professor of medicine at Columbia University and also was a director for the March of Dimes.

Women are changing the face of medicine

The National Library of Medicine profiles these and many other women physicians at Changing the face of Medicine – celebrating America’s women physicians.

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sharing the HEART of women physicians

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Dr. Aletha

Dr. Bonhoeffer and a visit to Berlin- Tuesday Travels

Dietrich Bonhoeffer may have passed his life quietly in Christian service and scholarly pursuits had it not been for the rise of Nazism in Germany and the resulting second world war.

I feel an instant connection whenever I meet another physician or someone related to a physician. You will recognize it as the way you feel when you meet someone from your hometown, or high school, or previous job, after being away a long time.

People who share a common bond with you best understand where you’re coming from, what you’ve been through, and what it’s like being you .

My patients who have physician relatives tend to be the most respectful of my knowledge, time, and privacy. Anytime a physician’s relative asks me a medical question in a social setting, I know it’s something important.

Many well-known people, past and present, come from physician families and I discovered one in my reading recently. About that time my son returned from a trip to Germany and posted beautiful photos online. Those two discoveries provided the idea for this blog post.

Dr. Bonhoeffer, psychiatrist

Dr. Karl Bonhoeffer started a medical practice in 1893 in what is now Wroclaw Poland, where he met and married his wife Paula Von Hase. He was a neurologist/psychiatrist at a time when both of those specialties were young. They had 8 children, including a set of boy/girl twins.

In 1912 they moved to Berlin where he was appointed head of psychiatry at Charite Hospital. There he taught and conducted research in brain disease; he worked with Dr. Carl Wernicke who became famous himself, having a disorder named after him- Wernicke encephalopathy, a brain disease caused by thiamine (vitamin B1) deficiency, usually due to long term alcoholism. His name is also assigned to an area of the brain which helps us understand and produce meaningful speech, Wernicke center.

Dr. Bonhoeffer had two other famous physician colleagues- Dr.Sigmund Freud and Dr. Carl Jung.

One of the Bonhoeffers’ sons became a physicist, another a linguist (before dying in military service in the war), another entered law school. But the fourth son, brother to the twin girl, chose a different path, one his family did not heartily approve of. That son, Dietrich, pursued theology, a choice that would ultimately determine his unfortunate fate.

Reverend Bonhoeffer, theologian and pastor

Dietrich Bonhoeffer first attended Tubingen University and finished at Humboldt University. He traveled extensively abroad, including the United States and India and returned to Germany to serve the Church as pastor and preacher. He may have passed his life quietly in Christian service and scholarly pursuits had it not been for the rise of Nazism in Germany and the resulting second world war.

Humboldt University, Berlin ,Germany — Humboldt University, Berlin, Germany

Bonhoeffer believed that Germany’s political and military goals were not compatible with Christian beliefs, so he clandestinely entered the resistance movement, including working as a confidential agent of military intelligence. He helped Jews escape Germany. He also was aware of and possibly involved in plots to assassinate Hitler.

The burned books memorial in Berlin — memorial to burned books in Berlin

Reverend Bonhoeffer, the martyr

Unfortunately, he eventually came under suspicion and was arrested. After 18 months in a prison, he was transferred to a concentration camp where he was sentenced to death.

On April 9, 1945 he was executed by hanging, and his body was cremated. He was 39 years old. His brother Klaus and two brothers-in-law were also executed by the Nazis for their involvement in the resistance. Their father, Dr. Bonhoeffer, died in Berlin in 1948.

Memorial to Murdered Jews in Berlin — At the Memorial to Murdered Jews of Europe in Berlin

Bonhoeffer, the writer

Fortunately, Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s prolific writing survived and inspires us to live the way he did. Writing in Bonhoeffer for Armchair Theologians, the authors quote the concentration camp doctor who said about him ,

“I was most deeply moved by the way this unusually lovable man prayed, so devout and so certain that God heard his prayer. In my fifty years …as a doctor, I have hardly ever seen a man die so entirely submissive to the will of God.”

Here are a few quotes from his many books and sermons which were published both before and after his death.

“God wants to lead us. Not all the ways of humans are God’s leading. For a long time we can walk our own paths. On those we are pawns of coincidence, whether they bring good luck or misfortune. Our own ways always lead in a circle back to ourselves. But when God leads our ways, they guide us to him. God’s ways guide us to God. God leads us through happiness and unhappiness always and only towards God. In this we recognize god’s way.”

The mystery of Easter.

“Do and dare what is right not swayed by the whim of the moment. Bravely take hold of the real not dallying now with what might be. Not in the flight of ideas but only in action is freedom. Make up your mind and come out into the tempest of living. God’s command is enough and your faith in him to sustain you. Then at last freedom will welcome your spirit among great rejoicing.”

Category: News, observances, history

How Women Changed and are Changing Healthcare