The Doctors Blackwell

Janice P. Nimura digs deep into the diaries and letters of the Blackwell sisters, who were among the very first women in America to be trained as doctors. The book reads like a novel without sacrificing historical accuracy and scholarly rigor. I found myself deeply moved by the sisters’ struggles to be taken seriously as physicians in an entirely male world. Jeered in lecture halls and treated as curiosities off-campus, they maintained a dignified courage and a relentless work ethic. Eventually, they shamed their skeptics and opened the doors for future generations of women doctors. This is a compelling tale… show more.

Janice Nimura dips into one of her first interests – medicine – to tell a novelistic story about Elizabeth and Emily Blackwell, two groundbreaking sisters from the nineteenth century who became doctors, thus expanding women’s sense of what they could accomplish in the world. Their road was not an easy one. Men bristled at the thought of having to endure a med school class with a woman, or of possibly losing female patients to a female doctor. But through grit and determination, these siblings were able to overcome those obstacles and open the first hospital staffed entirely with women. It’s… show more.