When: Wednesday, May 27, 2015 8:00 p.m. EST/ 7 p.m. CST/5 p.m. PST
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Women physicians are often depicted as rising, spontaneously out of the mid 1800’s, with no regard to their social, political or personal lives. In seeking lesbian physicians among these indomitable pioneers the criteria of (1) Not Married, (2) owned property with a woman, and/or (3) recognized as “life companions” with a woman has made it possible to identify an astonishing number of very significant lesbian physicians who practiced between 1850 and 1900. Many were instrumental in establishing and funding educational programs for women in medicine, hospitals that cared for women and children, and immigrant populations. They were also active in providing health care to the military during the Civil War. Throughout the last half of the 19th century they promoted suffrage, abolition, and temperance. The necessary link between a medical school and an associated hospital was also a product of these women’s forward thinking.
Speaker: Dr. Jane Petro is a retired professor of surgery, editor of the Journal of American Academy of Cosmetic Surgery, and is working on a book celebrating the unknown lives or the early lesbian physicians. She lives in Boston with her wife and partner Dr. Carolyn Becker whom she met at a “Women in Medicine” conference three decades ago.
Moderator: Dr. Neelum T. Aggarwal; Chief Diversity Officer, AMWA
