Olivia CampbellWomen in White Coats: How the First Women Doctors Changed the World of Medicine

"Women in White Coats" is a fascinating and educational read. The author is skilled in his craft and did an excellent job researching and writing about women in medicine. These stories show that no matter the era, medicine is the 'good ole' boys club' and women still have to struggle to prove their worth and expertise to survive in healthcare. If you like reading about history, medicine, and a woman's place in history this is a must read.

WOMEN IN WHITE COATS: How the First Women Doctors Changed the World of Medicine by Olivia Campbell is a historical biography which follows the lives of three Victorian women who fight to earn MDs from universities in the early 1800’s.This book follows Elizabeth Blackwell MD, Elizabeth Garrett Anderson MD, and Sophia Jex-Blake MD as they fought for first their medical educations and degrees against male prejudice and then strived to improve the health of women and children. Their determination opened doors and led the way for more women to follow.I liked this book, but I was hoping for more. The determination of any trailblazer must be applauded, and these women’s accomplishments are astonishing as each did it in her own way in a repressive time period. The medical descriptions of practices and procedures in the Victorian era covered in this book are fascinating and it is a wonder anyone lived with some of the treatments given, but there is so much detail that the narrative gets bogged down in places. Also, as the story continues, there are friends and acquaintances added which leads to my having difficulty keeping track of who was doing what and where they were located without sometimes flipping back in the story.This was an interesting biography of these determined women.RATING: 3.5 out of 5 Stars (Rounded up)

Great read about women's rights!These MD's trail blazed for women to enter the medical profession!

At the beginning of this book I was engrossed in the story and history of the first women doctors but half way through the story telling became dry and found myself struggling to finish the book. Great facts and lots of knowledge just couldn't keep my attention.

A wonderful story approach to the incredible journey of women who wanted to be doctors in a time where this dream was not permitted. The historical description integrates with the personalities and how these individuals struggled to do what their passions dictated. Made me appreciate how far we have come not so very long ago.

This book is an excellent, information dense book. It has so much fascinating information about women's history as re the women's suffrage movement and medicine as an institution. It illustrates the very real fight for women to gain better educations that would both enable them to earn good wages. Women doctors would make moves that served to improve the lives of women in every social class. It also compares how women doctors were viewed and treated in America versus the UK which was quite different. The author pointed out many key figures in the history of establishing avenues for women to obtain MD's, gain experience and earn money as doctors. Many of them were quakers even though I also noted that none of the early female doctors mentioned were of this group. Women found it much easier to become doctors in the US, but were omitted from gentile society, whereas women doctors in the UK were welcomed in intellectual circles and high society. The early MD students received such abuses from the medical establishment in the UK that they gained a lot of sympathy from the general public. Politicians from the House of Commons supported their cause due to its popularity and it helped greatly that many of the poorest people benefited from the free and low cost clinics set up by these women as they were getting their feet into the profession. I believe that this would be an excellent source of info for anyone wishing to shine a new light on female trail blazers and how they effected change. Florence Nightingale deserves all support she received by the public for her contributions to healthcare but, at the same point in history other women were forcing the doors of the medical establishment open and arguably making far more wide reaching impacts on the health of women and their potential to earn money and free themselves from the patriarchy. Women who were less praised in their lifetime and more easily forgotten with the passage of time

I think its particularly interesting to anyone wanting to enter the world of medicine, man or woman, and to see how things developed.

I knew - or assumed- that women had a difficult time reclaiming the right to practice medicine, but I had no idea the extremes the first women had to endure to achieve legitimate MDs status. I previously assumed males wanted to keep women out of the profession to keep the lucrative and status benefits to themselves, but it apparently went way beyond this. The prejudice and ridiculous assumptions about women - their smaller brains, their emotionality, their inability to concentrate were used to keep women out of the one place they certainly belonged: women's diseases and childbirth! Since women in general were reluctant to go to a male physician for these issues, the health of women deteriorated. Women themselves wanted and needed access to female doctors. And this is even true today as I can attest to. I have renewed appreciation for these original women who battled prejudice and ridicule and physical and emotional abuse to open the path for females - I should say re-open - because over the millions of years it was area where only women delivered babies etc. The resistance and persistence they showed in the face of extreme misogyny was amazing. They were true heroines.

my wife enjoyed reading it

… but too many minute details.!!!The epilogue should have been the prologue so that the concise summary of women’s many contributions to medicine both in research, diagnostics, surgical and treatment were stated at the get go.THEN say ‘.. and here is how they got there.’I grew weary of the back and forth to USA, Edinburgh, Paris, London, Zurich etc.If I grew weary, imagine what these strong women felt. But it became too much detail for the reader . Almost to the point I was going to give up.I also got terribly confused by so many women mentioned —-Elizabeth, Lizzie, Emily, Sophia, etcetcI needed one of those story boards to show who was related to who, who was friends/ lovers with who.In the end I just gave up trying to keep anyone but the two Blackwell sisters straight.*** interesting tidbit… on 2023 Jeopardy Masters Tournament, one of the clues was ‘last name of two sisters Elizabeth and Emily in recent book about women doctors’I thought no one would guess but Andrew He answered correctly ‘Who are the Blackwells?’

This book describes the barriers that women had to overcome, to be recognized as legitimate and competent physicians in a field that was dominated by men. It tells of the triumphs and the disappointments that women endured in their fight to be recognized as equals to men. In the end, they managed to prove that in some instances, they were better than men.