Elizabeth Blackwell: First Woman M.D. (The Barnard Biography Series) - Softcover

Nancy Neveloff Dubler is Senior Associate at the Montefiore-Einstein Center for Bioethics and Professor Emerita of Bioethics at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine. She cofounded the Certificate Program in Bioethics and Medical Humanities in 1994 with David Rothman of Columbia University. She is the Consultant for Ethics for the New York City Health and Hospitals Corporation, the nation's largest public hospital system.

Grade 8 Up. Setting the stage for Blackwell's story is a foreword delineating the limitations of American medicine in the early 1800s and how much women suffered at the hands of male physicians, who practiced without standards. Onto this scene, from a close-knit family of Dissenters who emigrated from England, came a single-minded young woman determined to become a surgeon. A few physicians rallied to her cause, becoming sponsors, but no medical schools would admit her?except, eventually, Geneva Medical College of Western New York, and that was actually the result of a joke. The many personal and professional hurdles that Blackwell had to overcome in order to succeed are clearly put forth in this lively, well-documented narrative. Kline is particularly adept at placing her subject in the context of her social and intellectual milieu, her teaching career, and the community of medicine during her lifetime. This motivational biography makes thrilling the struggle of women joining forces to be recognized in a society totally controlled by males. A satisfying and eminently readable presentation.?Susan F. Marcus, Pollard Middle School, Needham, MA
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