Women in White Coats: How the First Women Doctors Changed the World of Medicine – A NYT Bestseller Historical Biography of Science and Power

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER!

For fans of Hidden Figures and Radium Girls comes the remarkable story of three Victorian women who broke down barriers in the medical field to become the first women doctors, revolutionizing the way women receive health care.

In the early 1800s, women were dying in large numbers from treatable diseases because they avoided receiving medical care. Examinations performed by male doctors were often demeaning and even painful. In addition, women faced stigma from illness—a diagnosis could greatly limit their ability to find husbands, jobs or be received in polite society.

Motivated by personal loss and frustration over inadequate medical care, Elizabeth Blackwell, Elizabeth Garrett Anderson and Sophia Jex-Blake fought for a woman’s place in the male-dominated medical field. For the first time ever, Women in White Coats tells the complete history of these three pioneering women who, despite countless obstacles, earned medical degrees and paved the way for other women to do the same. Though very different in personality and circumstance, together these women built women-run hospitals and teaching colleges—creating for the first time medical care for women by women.

With gripping storytelling based on extensive research and access to archival documents, Women in White Coats tells the courageous history these women made by becoming doctors, detailing the boundaries they broke of gender and science to reshape how we receive medical care today.

How did three women defy a world built to exclude them and change medicine forever? Pioneering Women: Meet Elizabeth Blackwell, Elizabeth Garrett Anderson, and Sophia Jex-Blake—three relentless women who defied society to become the first female doctors. 19th-Century Medicine: Discover the grim reality of Victorian healthcare, where demeaning examinations and social stigma kept women from receiving life-saving treatment. Women's History: Uncover the forgotten story of how women-run hospitals and teaching colleges were built, creating medical care for women, by women, for the first time. Narrative Nonfiction: Based on extensive archival research, this gripping story reads like a novel, bringing the struggles and triumphs of these medical trailblazers to life.