Women in Medicine

Children's Literature - Beverly Kobrin

Jacqueline C. Kent writes about Susan La Flesche Picotte, the first Native American woman to become a doctor, and two African American surgeons, May Edward Chinn and Dorothy Lavinia Brown, in one of the most recent of the fine "Profiles" series of collected biographies. Ms. Kent includes a timeline of the women' s progress in the field and a bibliography.

School Library Journal

Gr 4-6-With a nod to Merit Ptah of Egypt, the first known woman doctor, this volume chronicles the lives of eight U.S. pioneers in the field. Although the stories of Elizabeth Blackwell and May Edward Chinn have been covered elsewhere, the lives of Virginia Apgar, Dorothy Lavinia Brown, and Alma Dea Morani are less well known but just as compelling. The well-organized, lively text covers the subjects' early lives, their efforts to be admitted to medical school and practice medicine, and their achievements. Readers will learn that such advances as the Apgar score to assess a newborn's vital signs, early heart bypasses, and reconstructive plastic surgery techniques were developed by women. Black-and-white photographs and reproductions illustrate the profiles.-Christine A. Moesch, Buffalo & Erie County Public Library, NY