In the movie Barbie, a scene where Ken encounters The Patriarchy in a hospital and demands an appendectomy from a female doctor without qualifications reflects the challenges women in medicine face, highlighting the pervasive impact of gender biases.
The name Elizabeth Blackwell is probably familiar. Born in the UK, she was the first
woman in the USA to be awarded a medical degree. In Twice as Hard: The Stories of
Black Women Who Fought to Become Physicians, from the Civil War to the 21st Century,
Jasmine Brown spans over 150 years to introduce nine less well known names: Black
American women who became physicians. These were remarkable women. Rebecca Lee Crumpler
(1831–95) was, in 1864, the first Black woman to earn a medical degree in the USA.
Medscape talks with Jasmine Brown, a Rhodes Scholar and Penn medical student who spotlights the struggles of early Black women physicians in her new book.