12 trailblazing women doctors…and their inspiring stories

The foundational history of modern medicine is dominated by male figures who have endowed the profession with a masculine aura. Right from the times of Hippocrates and Galen, through to the eras of Vesalius and Harvey, countless great men have chiselled the medical profession into a muscular club, and deliberately or inadvertently kept it a manly enterprise. And the status of women in medicine was a contentious subject even in the time of Osler who was all for removing obstacles to the dreams of women becoming doctors.

But the hope of the walls ever coming down did not rest on the chance that the men will have a change of heart. Rather, it was the determination and resolve of a small number of women to attack the barricades and storm the citadel of medicine that started to turn the tide. Ignoring cold shoulders and outstaring icy glares, these women will not only barge into the profession, but they would stamp their marks of excellence on it.

In our next series of book reviews, we will celebrate 12 outstanding women who bravely stood up, not just to the men in white coats, but to society as a whole, to issue a statement – we belong. With occasional guile and subterfuge, but with a steely sense of purpose, the 12 women doctors in this series will stake their claim in the edifice of medicine. And they did so by either pioneering the female medical movement, or by making substantial defining contributions to the field.

So, with 12 fascinating books as our guides, we will travel back in time to live through the inspiring stories of these 12 trailblazing women doctors.

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