Cherri Hobgood, MD, FACEP 

A Quaker from Cincinnati, Ohio, Elizabeth Blackwell became the first women to practice in the United States. Blackwell—accepted to medical school as a joke—attended Geneva College in upstate New York. Faced with the scorn of local townspeople and her medical school faculty and classmates Blackwell persevered and in 1849 graduated first in her class.  

 Her contemporary, Anne Preston, also faced rejection and ridicule for attempting to obtain medical training. Rejected by four medical schools, she learned of a medical school for women founded by Quakers in Philadelphia. Preston enrolled in their first class. She remained on faculty, teaching hygiene and physiology until in 1858 when the Philadelphia Medical Society banned women from educational clinics and medical societies. In the face of this discrimination, Dr. Preston became an activist and raised funding from women philanthropists to open a women’s hospital where female students could train. In 1866 she became Anne Preston, M.D. and became the first women dean of a medical college, leading the Woman’s Medical College in Philadelphia. As Dean, she fiercely advocated for her students to attend clinics at both the Pennsylvania Hospital and the Philadelphia Hospital, Blockley. One student Sarah C. Hall recounts the experience many years later in a letter. 

 “We were allowed to enter by way of the back stairs and were greeted by the men students with hisses and paper wads, and frequently during the clinic were treated to more of the same. The Professor of Surgery came in and bowed to the men only. More hisses...We retired the same way we entered and, on reaching the outer door, found men students lined up on one side of the way, and we, to get out, had to take the road and walk to the street to the tune of 'The Rogues March.' Our students separated as soon as possible. All who could, took the little antiquated horse cars in any direction they were going. The men separated also, and in groups of twos, threes, and fours, followed the women."

 Preston incensed by the behavior of the male faculty and students refused to withdraw the female students. When confronted by the male professorate and admonished that the women were not qualified, she vociferously disagreed.  

 “It is not that the women students could not keep up, but that the men refused to welcome their equally capable female colleagues.” 

 This is an example of direct backlash against women. These types of incidents are fortunately rare today, however, the fight has gone underground. The ultimate result is that not much has changed. 

 Young women who are entering medicine today face many of the same challenges and much of the same behavior. If things are to change, then someone must speak, and speak with a different voice. Someone must speak about the routine, daily aspects of medical culture that limit the capacity of women to self-actualize and that continue to maintain the status quo. 

 If these things can change for women, who are nearly half of our workforce, then perhaps they can change for people of color and others who are not members of the majority. If we can collectively make this change, our patients will benefit, we will benefit, and our children will benefit.