Special event to acknowledge local legends
GALVESTON, Texas - When she began medical school in 1966 at the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston, Dr. Joan Richardson was one of 15 women in the first year class, the largest number ever enrolled at that time. "It was such a milestone, they took a picture of us," she said.
The following year Dr. Barbara Thompson, now chairwoman of family medicine, entered UTMB medical school with a group of 16 women.
This year's class of 230 first-year medical students includes 98 women.
From 5 to 7 p.m. on Thursday, Aug. 14, the university will honor the lives and achievements of women in medicine - including some of its own legendary female physicians - at an reception for a new exhibit titled "Changing the Face of Medicine: Celebrating America's Women Physicians."
The interactive, multimedia exhibit is on-loan from the National Medical Library and will be on display at UTMB's Moody Medical Library through Sept. 25. The exhibit and associated events are free and open to the public.
Dr. Thompson will open the new exhibit and introduce Ellen More, a prize-winning author who directs the office of medical history and archives at the University of Massachusetts Medical School.
More was co-creator with Manon Parry for the National Library of Medicine's original exhibition which has been reconstructed by the National Library of Medicine and the American Library Association as a traveling exhibit. From 1987 to 2006, More was a professor at UTMB's Institute for the Medical Humanities.
The exhibit includes a display of photographs, biographies and artifacts honoring some of UTMB's women physicians.
"I'm delighted to have the opportunity to pay tribute to women physicians and their contributions to the field of medicine," Thompson said. She will open the exhibit with her personal reflections and introduce historian and author Ellen More who is co-creator with Manon Parry of the original exhibit.
On Monday, Aug. 18, More will deliver a presentation on the history of women in medicine and the barriers they have faced. Her talk is set from 5:30 to 7 p.m. in the Harris Gallery on the third floor of the Rosenberg Library.
She directs the office of medical history and archives at the University of Massachusetts Medical School. She was a professor at UTMB's Institute for the Medical Humanities from 1987 to 2006.
Sarita Oertling, manager of library services and the Truman G. Blocker History of Medicine Collection, said the first woman to graduate from the University of Texas medical school was Marie Delalondre Dietzel in 1897. "Since that time several thousand women have earned medical degrees here," she said.
Thompson admits losing 20 pounds her first year of medical school because she was so focused on studying that she didn't always remember to eat. She selected family medicine as a specialty because she enjoyed each rotation so much that she wanted to do it all. Thompson became the first female chairwoman of a UTMB clinical department.
When she graduated in 1970, Richardson said that departmental chairmen in ophthalmology and dermatology did not accept female residents. "That seems unusual now but back then I didn't think much about it," she said. "There were many other opportunities."
"I believe the medical environment and certainly the lives of medical students are much different today," Richardson said. "When I was a student, there were no computers or pagers; the physicians and students were called over a hospital intercom. Every student and almost every faculty member lived on the island so there was a close knit feel to the community."
"The women medical students at UTMB today are smart and more grounded," she said. "I don't think they are as wild as we were but I have confidence in their abilities."
The UTMB portion of the exhibit will feature such luminaries as , Marie Dietzel, the university's first woman medical graduate; Ella Ware, who practiced medicine in rural Texas after her graduation in 1899; Marie Charlotte Schaefer, the first female faculty member and the first chairwoman of the department of embryology and histology; Mary Robert David, widely recognized for her care of typhoid patients in 1903-04; Mary Agness Hopkins, the first woman practitioner to open a medical practice in Dallas; Violet Hannah Keiller, an instructor in surgical pathology; Edith Bonnet, the first female intern at John Sealy Hospital; and Virginia Irvine Blocker, 1939, who is remembered for her achievements in research, administration and as a medical poet.
Changing the Face of Medicine: Celebrating America's Women Physicians was developed by the Exhibition Program of the History of Medicine Division of the National Library of Medicine in collaboration with the American Library Association Public Programs Office. The national traveling exhibition has been made possible by the National Library of Medicine and the National Institutes of Health Office of Research on Women's Health. The American Medical Women's Association provided additional support.