Episode 3 - The Doctress (Part I)
Think female doctors are a recent phenomenon? Think again! Women have been documented in medicine since the beginning of recorded history - so what changed, and how did medicine come to be seen as a male profession? This month on Anecdotal, we dive into this question in a two-part episode - plus a bonus interview with Dr. Julia López Fuentes (friend of the pod, sister of the host, and holder of a PhD in history.)
Celebrate Women’s History Month with me as I explore the stories of female doctors through the ages - from Peseshet (“the overseer of female physicians”) in 2500 BCE, to Trota of Salerno (1100 CE) and many, many more.
In Part I, we’ll cover the earliest records of female physicians, the professionalisation of medicine, and the impacts of the European witch hunts on female healers in the middle ages.
Also discussed: your lowered risk of death and adverse outcomes if your surgeon is a woman, and the disproportionate challenges women in medicine face today.
Special thanks to Jonathan Skourletos for the audio production support, and to Dr. Julia López Fuentes and Amy Yoshiko for their help with this episode.
If you enjoyed this episode, you might enjoy the following:
Witches, Midwives & Nurses: A History of Women Healers (1973) — fascinating read on how the European witch hunts and the professionalisation of medicine pushed women out of the medical profession
A History of Women in Medicine: From the Earliest Times to the Beginning of the Nineteenth Century (1938) — Ambitious and thoroughly researched book by pioneering American obstetrician Kate Campbell Hurd-Mead
Trotula, Women’s Problems, and the Professionalization of Medicine in the Middle Ages (1985)
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