Speaker 1: I had not the slightest idea of the commotion created
Speaker 1: by my appearance as a medical student in the little town.
Speaker 1: Very slowly, I perceived that a doctor's wife at the
Speaker 1: table avoided any communication with me, and that as I
Speaker 1: walked backwards and forwards to the college, ladies stopped to
Speaker 1: stare at me as a curious animal. I afterwards found
Speaker 1: that I had so shocked Geneva propriety that the theory
Speaker 1: was established that either I was a bad woman whose
Speaker 1: designs would gradually become evident, or that being insane an
Speaker 1: outbreak of insanity would soon become a parent. Those are
Speaker 1: the words of Elizabeth Blackwell, the first woman ever to
Speaker 1: earn a medical degree in the United States, and the
Speaker 1: person reading them was Dr Deborah Michaels, Professor of Women
Speaker 1: and Gender Studies at Merrimack College. Elizabeth Blackwell was a
Speaker 1: woman ahead of her time. Her medical thinking was advanced,
Speaker 1: and she opened the door to all the women who
Speaker 1: have since followed into the medical profession. I'm a land
Speaker 1: ververe and this is Seneca's one women to hear. We
Speaker 1: are bringing you one hundred of the world's most inspiring
Speaker 1: and history making women. You need to hear. In eighteen
Speaker 1: forty nine, Elizabeth Blackwell graduated first in her class from
Speaker 1: Geneva Medical College in New York State. It was the
Speaker 1: only school that would take her, and she got in
Speaker 1: because the other students thought it would make a good
Speaker 1: prank to have a woman in class. But her career
Speaker 1: was no joke. Among her accomplishments was starting a medical
Speaker 1: college for women in New York City. We spoke to
Speaker 1: Dr Deborah Michaels to find out more. Let's listen and
Speaker 1: learn why Dr Elizabeth Blackwell is one of se because
Speaker 1: women to hear. I'm delighted to be here today with
Speaker 1: a doctor Deborah Michaels, and we're going to be speaking
Speaker 1: about Dr Elizabeth Blackwell, who has been called the first
Speaker 1: female doctor, certainly the first woman in America to get
Speaker 1: a medical degree. Dr Michaels, I wonder could we start
Speaker 1: maybe with talking about her impact, Um, what she will
Speaker 1: be remembered for. Maybe you could place her in history?
Speaker 1: Oh sure, Um, Elizabeth Blackwell is, as you said, the
Speaker 1: first woman to receive a medical degree. Not necessarily the
Speaker 1: first woman to practice medicine, because midwives have been practicing
Speaker 1: medicine before that, but the first woman to blaze this
Speaker 1: new trail for women to say that women have not
Speaker 1: only the ability, but also the right um and should
Speaker 1: have the right to become doctors. And not only did
Speaker 1: she become a doctor, she studied um typhus, which was
Speaker 1: a highly contagious disease at the time, and you know,
Speaker 1: thinking about that in the context of the world we
Speaker 1: live in today, her work um advancing the ways in
Speaker 1: which diseases were transmitted. She studied, for example, the ways
Speaker 1: in which physicians might transmit a disease because from patient
Speaker 1: to patient by not washing their hands in between visiting
Speaker 1: with patients. So, I mean that's kind of resonates in
Speaker 1: a very contemporary way. You're not kidding, right, So she's
Speaker 1: one of the first people to actually begin to talk
Speaker 1: about how do diseases spread and what role do you
Speaker 1: does hygiene play in that? And that was a very
Speaker 1: big area of study for her Um. She you know,
Speaker 1: it's it's significant that she Um was the first woman
Speaker 1: to attend a medical college that was co educational. But
Speaker 1: she was also somebody who went on to found both
Speaker 1: medical schools for women and infirmaries and and sort of
Speaker 1: many smaller hospitals that treated women She didn't love the
Speaker 1: idea of women only um, you know, medical schools, because
Speaker 1: she felt that women should be allowed to attend any
Speaker 1: any school, anywhere. But she also understood, because she lived
Speaker 1: through them, the difficulties women at that time fased attending
Speaker 1: medical colleges that were dominated by men, you know, harassment, um,
Speaker 1: being blocked from certain trainings or letters of recommendation or
Speaker 1: you know, all kinds of things um at that time.
Speaker 1: So so in many ways we think about her impact,
Speaker 1: it's you know, people love the idea of firsts, and
Speaker 1: certainly she's a first, but she's more than just a
Speaker 1: first in terms of being the first doctor. She's the
Speaker 1: person who opened the door for all of the women
Speaker 1: who came after her. And I think that's significant when
Speaker 1: we look at any of the first in our history.
Speaker 1: How did they open the door for all of the
Speaker 1: women you know today? For example today, you know, I
Speaker 1: looked up a statistic prior to this women are m
Speaker 1: more than of the students in medical schools right now, correct,
Speaker 1: And that would not have happened without an Elizabeth Blackwell.
Speaker 1: But isn't this so interesting about the first that they
Speaker 1: pay it forward in a really significant way and open
Speaker 1: the door, as you say, I think there's some real
Speaker 1: strong learning in all of that, and and the fact
Speaker 1: that some of the things that she was dealing with
Speaker 1: in school you mentioned harassment, discrimination. We are still battling
Speaker 1: some of those issues. So people who really, especially women leaders,
Speaker 1: who do engage in this way can have tremendous impact,
Speaker 1: and it continues, thankfully. I also had heard about her
Speaker 1: that she went into medicine because a dying friend wish
Speaker 1: that she had had a woman physician. She obviously did not.
Speaker 1: Is that a true story you had mentioned? Certainly there
Speaker 1: are women midwives, but how did medicine treat women patients
Speaker 1: during her life time or just around that time. Well,
Speaker 1: that is a true story. She had a friend who
Speaker 1: was dying of cancer. UM. Elizabeth Blackwell was one of
Speaker 1: those women at that time. She was part of this
Speaker 1: very activist family. They defied a lot of social norms.
Speaker 1: Her her family was involved in the anti slavery movement.
Speaker 1: Elizabeth is born in eighteen twenty one, and she's coming
Speaker 1: of age in the eighteen forties and fifties, and at
Speaker 1: that time, you know, as pre Civil War, her family
Speaker 1: is speaking out against UM, against the continuation of slavery.
Speaker 1: She's part of that very very famous Blackwell family. Her
Speaker 1: brother Henry Blackwell, is an abolitionist. She grows up being
Speaker 1: friends with Harriet Beetures Stowe, who wrote Uncle Tom's Cabin.
Speaker 1: She travels in very she she gets to know people
Speaker 1: who will later become prominent. UM. And one of her
Speaker 1: friends is dying of what we would call cancer today.
Speaker 1: And the medical profession then it's not the medical profession
Speaker 1: of today. UM, it's beginning to professionalize. It's getting to
Speaker 1: require licenses and special training. UM. Around the time that
Speaker 1: Elizabeth most to medical school, but before that, most people
Speaker 1: became a midwife or a doctor. They trained by apprenticing
Speaker 1: with an existing doctor or midwife. And the reason her
Speaker 1: friend her friends said to her, you know, Elizabeth, you're
Speaker 1: so talented, you're so intelligent, you should become a doctor.
Speaker 1: Because if I had been treated by a doctor who
Speaker 1: was a woman, I think my treatment would have been better.
Speaker 1: And what she's referring to is that the male the
Speaker 1: male doctors who treated her cancer were highly aggressive. UM.
Speaker 1: And as many doctors were at that time, highly aggressive,
Speaker 1: and they used techniques that today we might consider kind
Speaker 1: of coined or barbaric. I mean they you know, they
Speaker 1: used phrenology, They studied the skull to see what that's
Speaker 1: said about, you know, about your personality or about your
Speaker 1: medical conditions. They use leeches, they used blood letting, They
Speaker 1: and and in very aggressive ways. So I think what
Speaker 1: her friend pointing to is that that the treatment might
Speaker 1: have been more humane, might have been more understanding of
Speaker 1: a woman's um position and situation had she been treated
Speaker 1: by a woman. And Elizabeth she was actually really turned
Speaker 1: off by the idea when her friend says this. You know,
Speaker 1: Elizabeth loved to read literature. She wanted to to to
Speaker 1: engage in sort of that kind of life of the mind.
Speaker 1: And she writes later in um in her book on
Speaker 1: the pioneer work and Opening the medical profession to Women,
Speaker 1: she writes that she was um she hate This is
Speaker 1: a quote from her She said, I hated everything connected
Speaker 1: with the body and could not bear the site of
Speaker 1: a medical book. My favorite studies were history and metaphysics,
Speaker 1: and the very thought of dwelling on the physical structure
Speaker 1: of the body and its various ailments filled me with disgust.
Speaker 1: Oh my goodness, Bran, can you imagine that? Instead she
Speaker 1: went into teaching, which is what what most women did.
Speaker 1: That was a you know, a legitimate profession for women
Speaker 1: at the time. So what put her over, Well, she
Speaker 1: starts to think about it a little bit more, um,
Speaker 1: and then she just I think as she starts to
Speaker 1: think about it more, she decides that she just needs
Speaker 1: to do it. Um. I think this idea of her
Speaker 1: friend maybe could have haunted her a little bit um,
Speaker 1: but she definitely decides that she wants to do it.
Speaker 1: And in order to get into some of these medical
Speaker 1: um schools at the time, you really kind of had
Speaker 1: to have had previous experience, which you know, she didn't have.
Speaker 1: She was a school teacher. So what she does very
Speaker 1: cleverly as she becomes a school teacher, she moves to Asheville,
Speaker 1: North Carolina, and she becomes a music teacher for the
Speaker 1: daughters of Dr. John Dickinson, and he basically lets her
Speaker 1: play in his medical library and he bolsters you know,
Speaker 1: her medical resume um and actually encourages her to go
Speaker 1: on and become a doctor. Um. So she starts to
Speaker 1: apply to medical colleges, which you know, as you know,
Speaker 1: she's rejected everywhere simply because she's a woman. Such a
Speaker 1: fascinating story though, that she moved to Asheville and was
Speaker 1: providing music lessons to the daughter of a physician. Really fascinating.
Speaker 1: And she has to keep her mouth shut about her
Speaker 1: families and her own anti slavery views because I remember
Speaker 1: she's in North Carolina in you know, the eighteen forties,
Speaker 1: which is a slave stick. My goodness. So, as you
Speaker 1: said a little bit earlier, today, we have just slightly
Speaker 1: over of medical students are are female today, and it's
Speaker 1: been a long road for women to get to this place.
Speaker 1: You were just talking about the obstacles that are pioneering
Speaker 1: woman confronted. So what did Dr Blackwell go through to
Speaker 1: get into medical school where she rejected? What? What kind
Speaker 1: of treatment did she get it in this application process? Well,
Speaker 1: so this is sort of one of these fun moments
Speaker 1: in history, right, There's there's several of them where women
Speaker 1: get something by accident and then they turn it into
Speaker 1: something phenomenal. Right, So we right, we know, we know
Speaker 1: for example that Title seven of the Civil Rights Act,
Speaker 1: you know, they add the word sex, kind of laying
Speaker 1: the game, and that changes everything for our our legal
Speaker 1: right to be treated equally um as employees in America.
Speaker 1: But it's Blackwell story is kind of the same thing.
Speaker 1: So she applies to multiple um medical colleges, and of
Speaker 1: course is rejected. She does not use the famous trick
Speaker 1: that we learn many women use later, which is just
Speaker 1: her first initial. She doesn't do that. She applies as
Speaker 1: Elizabeth Blackwell. What happens is that Geneva Medical College in
Speaker 1: New York begins to reject her, and then the the
Speaker 1: the administrators say, well, we're gonna see what the hundred
Speaker 1: and fifty mail students want, and if a single one
Speaker 1: of them does not vote to approve, she will not
Speaker 1: get in. So they put it to a vote of
Speaker 1: the male students, a hundred and fifty mail students and um,
Speaker 1: and all but one of them says yes. And the
Speaker 1: one who says no, the others taunt him into saying yes.
Speaker 1: And the reason they say yes is they think that
Speaker 1: it's funny. They think this is a prank. We'll have
Speaker 1: a woman here. She won't she won't make it, she
Speaker 1: won't be any good at it, but for a while,
Speaker 1: we'll have some sport about the whole thing. Um. And
Speaker 1: little do they know that the women that they think
Speaker 1: they're going to play this prank on is Blackwell who
Speaker 1: ultimately will graduate at the top of her class. Oh
Speaker 1: my gosh, that's quite a story, right, So this is
Speaker 1: I mean, I love stories like this because you know,
Speaker 1: the jokes on them ultimately. Um, but they admitted her
Speaker 1: purely as a joke. And you know, she writes about this,
Speaker 1: she says, um, you know, just as by way background,
Speaker 1: I think about Elizabeth Blackwell a lot when I teach
Speaker 1: my own students, and I think about what it means
Speaker 1: to be a woman in college today versus some of
Speaker 1: these first women who were college students or in this case,
Speaker 1: a medical student in a different historic context, when ideas
Speaker 1: about what gender roles and women's roles should be are
Speaker 1: not the same as our roles are today, and even
Speaker 1: today we're still arguing about what they should be. But
Speaker 1: but in the mid nineteenth century, you have this ideology
Speaker 1: of sort of pure womanhood and domesticity, and woman's place
Speaker 1: is supposed to be in the home and all things
Speaker 1: related to the home, and um, there are lots of
Speaker 1: sort of pseudo scientific beliefs that you know, if women
Speaker 1: are educated, it will draw blood from their reproductive organs
Speaker 1: to their brains, and therefore they won't be able to
Speaker 1: be mothers one day, um, or that their natures are
Speaker 1: too delicate to to be faced with the disgustingness of
Speaker 1: you know, the harsher things of life and so so.
Speaker 1: And I tell you this by way of context, because
Speaker 1: when Elizabeth writes about what happens to her in Geneva,
Speaker 1: in some ways she's she's regarded as um, a woman
Speaker 1: who violated woman's proper role. Um. So I'll just read
Speaker 1: a little for you from her own writing. She says,
Speaker 1: I had not the slightest idea of the commotion created
Speaker 1: by my appearance as a medical student in the little town.
Speaker 1: Very slowly, I perceived that a doctor's wife at the
Speaker 1: table avoided any communication with me, and that as I
Speaker 1: walked backwards and forwards to the college, ladies stopped to
Speaker 1: stare at me as a curious animal. I afterwards found
Speaker 1: that I had so shocked Geneva propriety that the theory
Speaker 1: was established that either I was a bad woman whose
Speaker 1: designs would gradually become evident, or that being insane an
Speaker 1: outbreak of insanity would soon become a parent. So that's
Speaker 1: what she's really up against. Well, and you know, as
Speaker 1: you were reading that, I was thinking of women and
Speaker 1: other parts of the world who are still confronted with
Speaker 1: norms that say they should work outside the home or
Speaker 1: are accustomed to arguments that go to the fact that
Speaker 1: they shouldn't do X, Y and z in terms of professions.
Speaker 1: So it's still very much with us. And I think
Speaker 1: it's great that you're educating younger women today in the
Speaker 1: college to understand both that they stand on the shoulders
Speaker 1: of women like Elizabeth Blackwell, but beyond that that these
Speaker 1: are still issues that one has to contend with in
Speaker 1: many parts of the world. Yes. Absolutely. And you know
Speaker 1: what's interesting too, is that she becomes so motivated that
Speaker 1: even as you know, she has nobody to study with,
Speaker 1: the men won't study with her, They won't admit her
Speaker 1: to the labs, they won't admit her to the clinical
Speaker 1: training sessions. They won't even tell her where to buy
Speaker 1: the books. Oh my gosh. So there's all And this is,
Speaker 1: I mean, this really is the definition of the kinds
Speaker 1: of obstacles and sabotage we still see today when women
Speaker 1: step into um territories or or job categories that are
Speaker 1: traditionally male totally and so, you know, in a way,
Speaker 1: her story even though it's you know, a hundred seventy
Speaker 1: years old is still very current. Senecas one hundred Women
Speaker 1: to Hear will be back after the short break. M
Speaker 1: we talk about how important support systems are and networks are. Now,
Speaker 1: you had mentioned that she came from a family of
Speaker 1: women's rights activists. How did people like Lucy Stone and
Speaker 1: her other relatives influence her, You know, it's really interesting
Speaker 1: about Lucy Stone. So Lucy Stone is, uh, you know,
Speaker 1: one of the one of the earliest women to attend college.
Speaker 1: She goes to Oberlin in the thirties and the eighteen thirties,
Speaker 1: she marries Henry Blackwell. And when Lucy Stone and Henry
Speaker 1: Blackwell marry in eighteen fifty eight, I mean they write
Speaker 1: their own marriage vows. They're published in the New York Times,
Speaker 1: but their marriage vows are a protestation of marriage. I
Speaker 1: mean basically they you know this whole they get married,
Speaker 1: and they basically in their statements say, we know marriage
Speaker 1: is role prison for women. We know that women are
Speaker 1: give up their rights. And in this case, you know,
Speaker 1: Lucy Stone says I'm giving up nothing, even though the
Speaker 1: laws of course means, you know, don't back that up.
Speaker 1: So she's in this kind of world. She's in this
Speaker 1: world of people who understand the limitations, and you know, frankly,
Speaker 1: she Blackwell herself it comes to adopt many of these ideas,
Speaker 1: and she never marries Um. She wants hardly to be
Speaker 1: a doctor because she wants to find a profession where
Speaker 1: she can support herself as an independent woman, because most
Speaker 1: women are marrying really well into the mid twentieth centuries
Speaker 1: for economic reasons. If the most lucrative jobs go for men,
Speaker 1: go to men, then it becomes very difficult for women
Speaker 1: to support themselves unless they marry and marry well. And
Speaker 1: so she's actually consciously thinking in the eighteen forties and
Speaker 1: fifties of how do I support myself in the event
Speaker 1: that I never marry r and increasingly choosing never to marry,
Speaker 1: and and so the connection with like people like her
Speaker 1: brother Um, who is the family member who attends her graduation,
Speaker 1: Henry Blackwell, and Lucy Stone, she's in that whole same
Speaker 1: sort of idea. She actually wants women to get educations
Speaker 1: and she tries to push through that. She says, you know,
Speaker 1: when women are this black Wall speaking, she says, women
Speaker 1: are feeble, narrow, frivolous at present, ignorant of their own capacities,
Speaker 1: and underdeveloped in thought and feeling. And while they remain so,
Speaker 1: the great work of human regeneration must remain incomplete. And
Speaker 1: in this quote, I think she's saying, we're missing a
Speaker 1: whole talent pool here, and women don't realize what they're
Speaker 1: capable of. I think all of that is really revolutionary
Speaker 1: thinking and still with us today. You know, we're still
Speaker 1: not tapping fully the talents and experiences of half the
Speaker 1: population of the world. So in many ways we're still
Speaker 1: of struggling with these issues. Absolutely, and again not even
Speaker 1: not just against you know, one of the things that
Speaker 1: that she had to defy where the men who said, look,
Speaker 1: we don't want women in medical school because we don't
Speaker 1: want to compete with them. We we don't need any
Speaker 1: more rivals, or we don't want to be seen as
Speaker 1: sort of silly and frivolous by men who might attract
Speaker 1: We won't get the best students if we if we
Speaker 1: let women in. But she also was up against women,
Speaker 1: and one of her letters was to a woman who
Speaker 1: you know, accused her of trying to take a higher
Speaker 1: place for women, and that in some ways is still
Speaker 1: with us. Yes, I mean in her response, she says,
Speaker 1: I do not wish to give women a first place
Speaker 1: us still less a second one, but the most complete
Speaker 1: freedom to take their true place, whatever it may be.
Speaker 1: Beautiful quote. So she had this this spirited world in
Speaker 1: which she lived, and she got to medical school, she graduated.
Speaker 1: Tell us a little bit about her career in New York.
Speaker 1: Did she advances in medicine and for women as well?
Speaker 1: She does. But here's the here's the interesting thing about
Speaker 1: Elizabeth Blackwell and and many of the early women doctors
Speaker 1: and and frankly even female doctors today. Most she she
Speaker 1: does her work in obstetrics and gynecology and pediatrics, and
Speaker 1: today obstetrics and gynecology eighty three point four percent of
Speaker 1: doctors in O B g U I n our women.
Speaker 1: Seventy percent of doctors who practice pediatrics are women. And
Speaker 1: so you know, she's doing what many women in that
Speaker 1: time did, which is that they found a way to
Speaker 1: take their gender role and make it and defy it
Speaker 1: while also making it making the work they do align
Speaker 1: with it. So she is treating women. Um, that makes
Speaker 1: it a little less radical that she's a doctor. I mean,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of pushback against the idea of women
Speaker 1: treating men it's inappropriate. At that time, she Uh she
Speaker 1: can't get her doctor her dean to write letters for her,
Speaker 1: so she ends doing UM some some of her post
Speaker 1: after graduating, she does some work in Pennsylvania at an
Speaker 1: almshouse treating poor women UM and children. And she discovers
Speaker 1: this that that many of these women who have venereal
Speaker 1: diseases are UM seduced by the men they work for
Speaker 1: and then abandoned. And this, this idea of helping women
Speaker 1: becomes her mission. She does go to New York in
Speaker 1: eighteen fifty one and and she can't get a job
Speaker 1: because nobody wants to hire a women a woman. So
Speaker 1: she and her sister, who at this point her sister Emily,
Speaker 1: also becomes a doctor UM, the third woman to have
Speaker 1: a medical degree as her sister and UM, they open
Speaker 1: a clinic for women and children that UM in eighteen
Speaker 1: fifty seven becomes a New York Infirmary for for women
Speaker 1: and children. In eighteen sixty eight, she opens a medical
Speaker 1: college for women in New York City. And this is
Speaker 1: around the time that more and more women's medical colleges
Speaker 1: begin to open around the country. It's just fascinating, you know.
Speaker 1: She goes to Paris for a little while after she graduates,
Speaker 1: and she's treating children, um and who are infected with bacteria,
Speaker 1: one of them, uh, and she gets an infection in
Speaker 1: her eye from one of the children, so she loses
Speaker 1: her left eye. Um and so her dream of becoming
Speaker 1: a surgeon disappears with that, and she ends up. She
Speaker 1: stays in obstetrics, does important research um and returns to
Speaker 1: London in the eighteen seventies to become a professor and
Speaker 1: open a women's medical college there. But she was never
Speaker 1: going to be able to even go much further with
Speaker 1: the dream of becoming a surgeon once she lost her
Speaker 1: left eye. But I tell you that story because I
Speaker 1: think it's important, uh, you know, to circle back to
Speaker 1: her influence or her impact. This is somebody who never
Speaker 1: gave up no matter what the odds against her were.
Speaker 1: You know, whether the odds were a world of society
Speaker 1: that said women should should get married and stay home
Speaker 1: and raise children and do nothing else, or whether you know,
Speaker 1: the odds were against blocking her issition to medical schools
Speaker 1: or letting her treat patients, or even when she has
Speaker 1: you know, loses her eyesight, nothing stops her. Sounds utterly remarkable.
Speaker 1: So let me go into that remarkable feature here. You
Speaker 1: are a professor of women in gender studies, obviously engaged
Speaker 1: deeply in in these stories in history and what they
Speaker 1: represent for today. What inspires you about Elizabeth Blackwell? Clearly
Speaker 1: you told us a great deal. That's just fascinating. But
Speaker 1: what lessons can we all take from her life? I
Speaker 1: think she's a sort of a paradigm of fearlessness and
Speaker 1: um steadfastness and resiliency. I mean, there's this is a
Speaker 1: woman who um the world would say no to her
Speaker 1: over and over again, and she just found a way
Speaker 1: to bypass or sidestep or overcome every single obstacle. I
Speaker 1: think that's that's the story. You know, There's so many
Speaker 1: times we experience in our own lives obstacles or discrimination
Speaker 1: or hardships, and many times we want to throw our
Speaker 1: hands up and say, well, I guess that's not the
Speaker 1: path for me. UM. When Blackwell couldn't get a job,
Speaker 1: she created her own clinic. When she could get people
Speaker 1: to accept her um as a doctor, she treated the
Speaker 1: poor who needed her and built a following from that.
Speaker 1: She built her reputation from that, from going where she
Speaker 1: was needed, proving what she could do, and then take,
Speaker 1: you know, making it bigger from there. I mean, there
Speaker 1: are always ways to to achieve what you want to
Speaker 1: achieve if you're willing to be creative as she was
Speaker 1: and to never take no for an answer. Debra, thank
Speaker 1: you so much for introducing us to Elizabeth Blackwell, for
Speaker 1: those of us who may not have known her uh
Speaker 1: and the role that she played in in women's history,
Speaker 1: in history of medicine, in this country's progress. Thank you
Speaker 1: for a wonderful conversation and for enabling us to become
Speaker 1: well acquainted or much better acquainted with Dr Elizabeth Blackwell.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much. Dr Michael's thank you for having me.
Speaker 1: I really enjoyed this. What a truly amazing woman. Here
Speaker 1: are three things I took away from that conversation. First,
Speaker 1: Elizabeth Blackwell shows how persistence pays off despite sexism, ostracism,
Speaker 1: and even the loss of an eye. She was determined
Speaker 1: to practice medicine and save lives. Second, if there were
Speaker 1: a roadblock in her path, rather than retreat, she'd find
Speaker 1: a way around it. As Dr Michael says, when Blackwell
Speaker 1: couldn't get hired as a physician, she started her own
Speaker 1: climp nick. When patients wouldn't come to her practice, she
Speaker 1: went out and treated the poor. Finally, Elizabeth Blackwell knew
Speaker 1: that medicine, like all endeavors, benefits when women's perspective is
Speaker 1: part of the equation, and the medical profession and patients
Speaker 1: have much to thank her for. Tune in next week
Speaker 1: to hear about our next featured woman and discover why
Speaker 1: she's one of Seneca's on Women to Hear. Seneca's one
Speaker 1: hundred Women to Hear is a collaboration between the Seneca
Speaker 1: Women Podcast Network and I Heart Radio, with support from
Speaker 1: founding partner PNGNG. Have a Great Day,