Women Physicians' Autobiographies

This bibliography grew out of a project begun by Dr. Marjorie S. Sirridge, with assistance from Brenda R. Pfannenstiel.
An article describing autobiographies from early women physicians appears in:
Sirridge, Marjorie S. and Brenda R. Pfannenstiel. "Daughters of Aesculapius: A Selected Bibliography of Autobiographies of Women Medical School Graduates 1849-1920." Literature and Medicine, Fall 1996; 15(2):200-216.
If you know of additional women physicians' autobiographies, please share the information with us.

A B C D E F G H IJ KL M NO P QR S T UV W XYZ

Abbott, Maude E. S. "Autobiographical Sketch (1928)." McGill Medical Journal. 28 (1959) 127-152.

Alsop, Gulielma Fell. Deer Creek: The Story of a Golden Childhood. The Vanguard Press, Inc., New York, New York, 1947.
[A memoir of her childhood, not her professional career. She was a 1908 graduate of the Woman's Medical College of Pennsylvania.] Alsop, Gulielma Fell. My Chinese Days. (Boston: Little Brown and Co., 1918).

Anderson, Camella. Jan, My Brain Damaged Daughter. (Portland, Or.: Durham Press, 1963).

Andrews, Mabel L. V. "Reminiscences of My Return to Medical Work." Journal of the Medical Women's Federation. 43:3 (July 1961) 126-127.
[Describes her return to medicine after 18 years spent as wife and mother]

Arnold, Jeannie Oliver. "Fifty-Two Years a Doctor." Medical Woman's Journal, 51:7 (July 1944) 27-28.
[Received M.D. in 1891, practiced in Providence, Rhode Island.]

Baker, S. Josephine. Fighting for Life. (New York: Macmillan Co., 1939).

Baker-McLaglan, Eleanor Southey. Stethoscope and Saddlebags. [New Zealand ?], 1962.
[Dr. McLaglan (1879-1969) became in 1903 the sixth woman in New Zealand to qualify in medicine.]

Ball, Elizabeth B. "A Mother's Vision." Medical Woman's Journal, 53:1 (January 1946) 39-43, 58.
[Pediatrician in Quincy, Illinois recalls her life. Graduated 1907 from University of Illinois Medical School]

Barringer, Emily Dunning. Bowery to Bellevue: The Story of New York's First Woman Ambulance Surgeon. W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., New York, New York, 1950.
[Concentrates on life 1902-1905. Born 1876, MD from Cornell University following study at the Medical College of the New York Infirmary. Basis for the MGM motion picture The Girl in White.]

Benetar, Judith. Admissions: Notes from a Woman Psychiatrist. Charterhouse, New York, New York, 1974.
[pseudonym of NYC psychiatrist]

Beregoff-Gillow, Pauline. A Doctor Dares To Tell: The Inside Story of Medicine. Comet Press Books, New York, New York, 1959.
[Author discusses her situation as a woman physician and gives a detailed view of the closed hospital, its practices, and the personal experiences she has had with this system of health care.]

Berle, Beatrice Bishop. A Life in Two Worlds: The Autobiography of Beatrice Bishop Berle. (New York: Walker and Co., 1983).

Berry, (Lady). "Anaesthetic Reminiscences." Medical Women's Federation News-Letter, (March 1928) 17-24.
[Relates experiences as an anesthetist during late 1800s to the present]

Blackwell, Elizabeth. Pioneer Work for Women. (1895; reprint, London: J. M. Dent & Sons, Everyman's Library, 1914).
Blackwell, Elizabeth, M.D. Essays in Medical Sociology. 2 vols. London: Ernest Bell, 1902. Reprint (2 vols. in 1). New York: Arno Press & The New York Times, 1972.

Blakslee, H. Virginia. Beyond the Kikuyu Curtain. (Chicago: Moody Press, 1956).

Brodie, Jessie Laird. "Career Satisfactions of a Physician." American Soroptimist, 33:8 (May 1960) 6-7.
[Discusses desire to become physician--is she one?]

Bushnell, Katharine C. Dr. Katharine c. Bushnell. Rose and Sons, Salisbury Hartford, 1930.
[Brief autobiographical sketch, written in Shanghai.]

Calderone, Mary S. "Physician and Public Health Educator." Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 208 (15 March 1973) 47-51.
[degree in public health, was medical director of Planned Parenthood Federation of America and formed SIECUS]

Calverley, Eleanor T. My Arabian Days and Nights. Thomas Y. Crowell Company, New York, New York, 1958.
[Kuwait's first woman physician. Graduate of Woman's Medical College of Pennsylvania sometime before 1912.]

Campbell-Mackie, Mary. "Fifty Years as a Woman Doctor." South African Medical Journal,13:44 (28 March 1970) 371-374.
[Entered Glasgow University in 1910]
Campbell-Mackie, M. "Looking Back. . .Fifty Years of Medicine as a Woman Doctor." South African Nursing Journal, 34:4 (April 1967) 12-14.

Cleaves, Margaret A. The Autobiography of a Neurasthene: As Told by One of Them. (Boston: Gorham Press, 1910).

"Contract Surgeon." Medical Woman's Journal, 49:11 (November 1942) 345.
[Dr. Gertrude F. McCann was hired by US Govt 1918 as a contract surgeon. Was fellow in pathology and bacteriology at Rockefeller Institute.]

Cote, Marie M. "Obstetrics in Burma." Woman's Medical Journal, [8]:10 (October 1899) 347-349. (Obstetrical Department)
[Dr. Cote relates a few of her experiences as a physician ministering to Burmese women.]

"Correspondence." Medical Woman's Journal, 32:9 (September 1925) 260-xi.
[A woman physician describes being stationed in Bonnie Bay, Newfoundland]

Cushier, Elizabeth M. and Thelberg, Elizabeth B., ed. "Autobiography of Dr. Elizabeth Cushier." Medical Review of Reviews, 39:3 (March 1933) 121-131.
Cushier, Elizabeth. "Autobiography of Elizabeth Cushier," in Medical Women of America, by Kate Campbell Hurd-Mead. (New York: Froben Press, 1933).

Dall, Caroline H. and Zakrzewska, Marie E. A Practical Illustration of "Woman’s Right to Labor;" or, A Letter from Marie E. Zakrzewska, M.D., Late of Berlin, Prussia. Walker, Wise, and Company, Boston, Massachusetts, 1860, 167 pp.
[Autobiographical letter from Dr. Zack, with discussion by Caroline Dall of Dr. Zack as an illustration of the ideals expressed in Dall’s treatise, Woman’s Right to Labor.]

Davidson, Gisela K. "Reflections of a Woman Physician After 34 Years of Practice in the State of Maine." Journal of the Maine Medical Association, 63:6 (June 1972) 103-104, 112.
[Austrian refugee, graduated from the Medical School of the University of Vienna, started residency in 1938 at a State of Maine institution for the treatment of TB]

DeGaris, Mary C. Clinical Notes and Deductions of a Peripatetic: Being Fads and Fancies of a General Practitioner. Balliere, Tindall and Cox, London, England, 1926.

Dempsey, Lillian E. "After Fifty Years." Medical Woman’s Journal, 53:12 (December 1946) 45-49.
[Graduated 1896 from the University of Oregon Medical School, practiced in Vallejo, Cal.]

"Dr. Grace Kimball and Her Work for Armenia." Double Cross and Medical Missionary Record, 11:10 (October 1896) 203-206.
[Dr. Kimball tells of her work experience in Armenia since 1882]

Dole, Mary Phylinda. A Doctor in Homespun: Autobiography of Mary Phylinda Dole, B.S., M.D. Published by the author, 1941.
[MD from Woman’s Medical College of Baltimore, interned at the New England Hospital for Women and Children.]

Donahue, Julia. “Fifty Years in Medicine (1892-1942).” Medical Woman’s Journal, 52:3 (March 1945) 43-44.
[She describes her medical missionary work in China and the U.S., and 20 years service at the Massillon State Hospital.]

Doyle, Helen MacKnight. Doctor Nellie: The Autobiography of Helen MacKnight Doyle. (Mammoth Lakes, Cal.: Genny Smith Books, 1983).
---. A Child Went Forth: The Autobiography of Helen MacKnight Doyle. (New York: Gotham House, 1934). Reprint. (Mammoth Lakes, Cal.: Genny Smith Books, 1983).

Drachman, Virginia G. Hospital With a Heart: Women Doctors and the Paradox of Separation at the New England Hospital, 1862-1969. (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1984).

Drooz, Irma Gross. Doctor of Medicine. Dodd, Mead & Company, 1949. [Neuropsychiatrist, educated at the New York University College of Medicine from 1938 to 1942.]

Dunaway, Jane E. Letters from Doctor Jane. (New York: Exposition Press, 1964).

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Eddy, Mary Pierson. “A Busy Woman.” Woman’s Medical Journal, 6:1 (January 1897) 12.
[The only woman permitted by the Turkish empire to practice medicine in that country describes her work.]

Elliott, Mabel Evelyn. Beginning Again at Ararat. Fleming H. Revell Company, New York, New York, 1924.
[Dr. Elliott served as director of the Near East division of the American Women’s Hospitals during the world war. This book describes her work and her observations on war and refugees.]

Emanuel, Vera and Martin, Peter. "Mis' Lady Doctor." Saturday Evening Post. (15 June1946) 12 passim, photos., port.

Fabricant, Noah D., ed. Why We Became Doctors. Grune & Stratton, New York, 1954.
[Collection of 50 autobiographical sketches, 2-3 pages each, includes seven women: Rosalie Slaughter Morton, Elizabeth Blackwell, Emily Dunning Barringer, Anne Walter Fearn, Josephine Baker, Alice Hamilton, and Alfreda Withington. All have written book-length autobiographies.]

Fearn, Anne Walter. My Days of Strength: An American Woman Doctor’s Forty Years in China. Harper & Brothers, New York, New York, 1939.
[Graduated from Woman’s Medical College of Pennsylvania 1893. Founded Soochow Hospital Medical College 1895.]

"Fifty Year Club: Sara Craig Buckley, M.D." Medical Woman’s Journal, 49:10 (October 1942) 317-318.
[Practiced in Chicago, but also studied and visited hospitals in Europe and in Japan. Her two sisters also became physicians.]

"For Black Women: Medicine is Opportunity, Challenge." BCM: Inside Baylor Medicine, 11:8 (August 1971) 2.
[Thelissa Harris was one of first two black women to enroll in Baylor’s medical school, along with Judith Craven.]

Foulks, Sara E. "Sara Foulks, M.D." Medical Woman's Journal. 51:5 (May 1944) 36-37, 41.
[Graduate of Woman's Medical College of Pennsylvania, was working in NY State Dept of Health in 1944.]

Gamble, Vanessa Northington. "On Becoming a Physician: a dream not deferred," in The Black Women's Health Book, edited by Evelyn C. White (Seattle, WA: Seal Press, 1990).
[African-American woman physician.]

Gardner, Emily. "Projects Sponsored by Medical Women [Part I]." Medical Woman's Journal, 40:4 (April 1933) 96.
[Dr. Gardner tells how she used her $1000 Mary Putnam Jacobi Fellowship; tells of her studies and work in London.]
Gardner, Emily. "Projects Sponsored by Medical Women [Part II]." Medical Woman's Journal, 40:5 (May 1933) 118-119.
[Describes her work in London and her studies in Vienna, financed by Jacobi fund.]

Gardner, Penney. "APFME Summer Fellowship." Buffalo Physician, (Summer 1968) 28-29.
[Dr. Gardner tells of one summer during her medical school training spent on a General Practice APFME Fellowship.]

Gates, Irene. Any Hope, Doctor? Blandford Press, London, England, 1954.
[Educated at Woman's Medical College of Pennsylvania 1923-1927, interned at Philadelphia General Hospital, where women interns were in charge of nurses’ infirmary in addition to their regular work.]

Gibson, Julia R. A Cry From India’s Night. Publishing House of the Pentecostal Church of the Nazarene, Kansas City, Missouri, 1914.
[Graduated 1915 from Woman’s Medical College of Pennsylvania. Book describes India and its people through Dr. Gibson’s experiences with them.]

Glasgow, Maude. "Maude Glasgow: Donor of the Janet M. Glasgow Scholarship Fund." Women in Medicine, 74 (October 1941) 10-12.
[Came to NY from Northern Ireland, was a nurse, then a physician. She briefly describes her career.]
Glasgow, Maude. "Maude Glasgow, M.D. (An Autobiography)." Medical Woman's Journal, 51:3 (March 1944) 34-36.
[Graduated from medical school in 1901.]

Gordon, Doris. Backblocks Baby-Doctor; and Autobiography. Faber & Faber Limited, London, England, 1955.
[One of the first two women students to earn their degrees at Otago University Medical School, she practiced in Stratford, New Zealand.]
Gordon, Doris. Doctor Down Under. Faber and Faber, London, England, 1958.
[Covers WW I to retirement in 1950s.]

Greenbaum, Dorothy, and Laiken, Deidre S. Lovestrong: a woman doctor's true story of marriage and medicine. (New York: Times Books, 1984).

Griscom, Mary W. "Surgery in the Wilderness." Atlantic Monthly, 137 (May 1926) 668-670.
[Anecdotes of her work in Chinese villages.]

Haffner,V. B. "A Half-Century in the Life of a Woman Physician." Nebraska Medical Journal, 60:6(June 1975) 197-199.
[MD 1925 from Boston University School of Medicine. Practiced in Allentown, PA.]

Hamilton, Alice. Exploring the Dangerous Trades: The Autobiography of Alice Hamilton, M.D. (Boston: Little, Brown, 1943).

Han, Suyin. Birdless Summer: China. Autobiography, History. G. P. Putnam's Sons, New York, New York, 1968.
[This third autobiographical volume by Han Suyin [Rosalie Chou] covers the years from 1938 to 1948. Was a medical student in London.]
Han, Suyin. The Crippled Tree: China. Biography, History, Autobiography. G. P. Putnam's Sons, New York, New York, 1965.
[This is a history of China 1885-1928, and the first volume of her autobiography covering her early years as a Eurasian child in Peking. She graduated in medicine from the University of London.]
Han, Suyin. A Mortal Flower: China. Autobiography, History. G. P. Putnam's Sons, New York, New York, 1966.
[2nd vol. Her decision to be a doctor, her education, a crucial period of Chinese history are told here. She studied medicine in Belgium 1935-38.]

Hardy, Harriet L. Challenging Man-Made Disease: The Memoirs of Harriet L. Hardy, M.D. (New York: Praeger, 1983).

Harris, Harry. "The Little Czech Woman in Black." Medical Woman's Journal. 54:8 (August 1947) 58-59.
[Dr. Vlasta Kalalova-DiLotti tells in her own words of the "cruelties of World War II" during which time her husband, son, and daughter were killed in Czechoslovakia by the Nazis retreating from Russia.]

Harrison, Michelle. A Woman in Residence. (New York: Random House, 1982).

Hawks, Esther Hill. A Woman Doctor's Civil War: Esther Hill Hawks Diary. (Columbia, S.C.: University of South Carolina Press, 1984).

Hayes, A. J., ed. At Work: Letters of Marie Elizabeth Hayes, M.B. Missionary Doctor, Delhi, 1905-8. Marshall Brothers Ltd., London, England,
[Born in Ireland, Marie Elizabeth Hayes took her degree in the school of medicine connected with the Royal University. Died 1908 at age of 33. Collection edited by her mother.]

Hellstedt, Leone McGreggor , ed. Women Physicians of the World: Autobiographies of Medical Pioneers. (Washington: Hemisphere, 1978).

Hill, Emma Linton. "Early Medical History." Medical Woman’s Journal, 51:7 (July 1944) 25-26, 30.
[1902 graduate of University of Illinois Medical College, practiced in Oswego, KS. Autobiography was published posthumously; Dr. Hill died in an auto accident in 1943.]

Hillard, Marion. A Woman Doctor Looks at Life and Love. (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1956).

Houston-Patterson, Anne. "Fifty Three Years a Doctor." Medical Woman's Journal, 51:8 (August 1944) 31-32.
[Graduated 1891 from Women’s Medical College of Baltimore. Medical missionary in China.]

Hunt, Harriot K. Glances and Glimpses; or Fifty Years Social, Including Twenty Years Professional Life. John P. Jewett and Company, Boston, Massachusetts, 1856.
[Honorary degree 1853 from Female Medical College in Philadelphia.]

Hunter, Gertrude T. "Pediatrician." Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 208 (15 March 1973) 37-40.
[A black woman pediatrician discusses her career.]

Hutton, I. Emslie. With a Woman's Unit in Serbia, Salonika and Sebastopol. Williams and Norgate Limited, London, England, 1928.
[Service during and after WW I]
Hutton, Isabel Emslie. Memories of a Doctor in War and Peace. James H. Heineman, Inc., New York, New York, [192?].

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Jacobi, Mary Putnam. Mary Putnam Jacobi, M.D.: A Pathfinder in Medicine. With Selections from Her Writings and a Complete Bibliography. Edited by the Women’s Medical Association of New York City. G. P. Putnam’s Sons, New York, New York, 1925.
[Includes her Paris letters to the Medical Record 1867-1870.]

Jacobs, Aletta H. "Holland's Pioneer Woman Doctor." Medical Woman's Journal, 35:9 (September 1928) 257-259.
[First woman to study medicine in Holland. Obtained degree 1879 from the University of Groningen.]

"Jane C. Wright: Appointed Associate Dean." Chironian, 29:2 (Summer 1967) 25-27.
[First Negro woman to be dean of the NY Medical College. Graduated from NY Med College 1945, was a cancer researcher and a medical advisor to the African Research Foundation. Excerpts from her report, A Visit to Kenya and Tanganyika in 1961, are included in this biography.]

Jeffery, M[ary] Pauline. "Letter to Editor." Medical Woman's Journal, 53:6 (June 1946) 52.
[Physician and writer (and TB patient) writes of her education and of her current activities in India.]

Jamison, Kay Redfield. An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness. Jilek-Aall, Louise. Call Mama Doctor: African Notes of a Young Woman Doctor. (Seattle, Wash.: Hancock House, 1979).

Johnson, Edith E. Leaves from a Doctor's Diary (1927-1954). (Palo Alto, Cal.: Pacific Books, 1954).

"Julia Woodzicka, M.D." Medical Woman's Journal, 49:10 (October 1942) 320-321.
[Autobiographical reminiscences of a country doctor in the pioneering community of Royalton, Wisconsin.]

Kaiser, Grace H. Detour. (Intercourse, Penn.: Good Books, 1990).
---. Dr. Frau. (Intercourse, Penn.: Good Books, 1986).

Kimball, Grace N. "Autobiographical Sketch." Medical Review of Reviews, 41:8 (August 1935) 393-398.
[Entered medicine 1888, worked in Van, Turkey. In 1896 was assistant resident physician at Vassar College. In 1898 opened a general practice in Poughkeepsie, NY.]

King-Salmon, Frances W. House of a Thousand Babies: Experiences of an American Woman Physician in China (1922-1940). Exposition Press, Jericho, New York, 1968.
[Graduated from medical school in 1921, then worked at Margaret Williamson Hospital in Shanghai, also known as House of a Thousand Babies.]

Klass, Perri. A Not Entirely Benign Procedure. (New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1987).
---. Baby Doctor. (New York: Random House, 1992).

"'Komapsumida' Is Korean for 'Thank You': An Interview with Roberta Rice." The Mayo Alumnus, (April 1968) 1-3.
[A Mayo Clinic alumna discusses her background and her decision to be a medical missionary in Korea.]

La Roe, Else K. Woman Surgeon: The Autobiography of Else K. La Roe, M.D. Dial Press, New York, New York, 1957.
[Childhood in Heidenheim, Germany, practice in Manhattan, NY]

"Letitia Westgate, M.D." Medical Woman’s Journal, 52:4 (April 1945) 51-52.
[Very brief discussion of her present work.]

Lewis, Fay Cashatt. Nothing to Make a Shadow. (Ames, Iowa: Iowa State University Press, 1971).
---. Doc's Wife. (New York: Macmillan Co., 1940).
---. Patients, Doctors, and Families. (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday & Co., 1968).
[An MD married to an MD, living in rural Iowa.]

Lin, Chiao-chih. "The Party Keeps Me Young." In: New Women in New China. Foreign Languages Press, Peking, People's Republic of China, 1972.
[Lin Chiao-chih (Dr. Khati Lim) wrote this at age 70, while head of gyn/ob dept of Peking's Capital Hospital. She studied in England and the U.S., and at Peking's Union Medical College.]

Lubchenco, Portia and Petteys , Anna C. Doctor Portia: Her First Fifty Years in Medicine, As Told to Anna C. Petteys. (Denver: Golden Bell Press, 1964).

Lynn, Ethel. The Adventures of a Woman Hobo. George H. Doran Company, New York, New York, 1917.
[The San Francisco earthquake destroyed her growing practice, so she and her husband moved to Chicago and were struck with the panic of 1907. Dr. Lynn learned she had TB, so she and her husband set out for warm California on a tandem bicycle!]

McCarthy, Claire Learning How the Heart Beats: the making of a pediatrician. (New York: Viking, 1995).

MacDonald, Carolyn N. "A Medical Summer in Europe." Medical Review of Reviews, 41:12 (December 1935) 633-640.
[Observations from her travels in Europe just prior to WW II, especially in Germany.]

McKibbon-Harper, Mary, ed. "Autobiography of Mary Kalopothakes, M.D." Bulletin of the Medical Women's National Association. 42 (October 1933) 17-19.
[Educated in Paris in early 1880s]

McKibbin-Harper, Mary. The Doctor Takes a Holiday: An Autobiographical Fragment. The Torch Press, Cedar Rapids, Iowa, 1941.
[Former editor of Women in Medicine describes her many travels through Middle East and Far East, 1920s-1930s.]
McKibbin-Harper, Mary. "A Medical Woman Looks at China." Medical review of Reviews, [35]:11 (November 1929) 565-578.
[Reports on China based on 1926 trip.]
McKibbin-Harper, Mary. "A Medical Woman Looks at Mother India." Medical Review of Reviews, 35:9 (September 1929) 457-476.

McNutt, Sarah J. "Medical Women, Yesterday and Today." Medical Record, 94:4 (27 July 1918) 135-139. (Presentation, Meeting, Women's New York State Medical Society, Albany, New York, 20 May 1918.)
[Student and intern at Women's Medical College of the New York Infirmary for Women and Children, McNutt loved and respected Dr. Emily Blackwell. Dr. McNutt opened Babies' Hospital in NYC in 1888, with her sister Dr. Julia G. McNutt.]

"Malnutrition in Africa." Buffalo Physician, (Fall 1975) 26-28.
[Dr. Charlotte Catz describes her African tour. Catz supervises research funding at the National Institute of Health and Human Development.]

Mandel, Ursula Greenshaw. I Live My Life. (New York: Exposition Press, 1965).

"Marie Elizabeth Zakrzewska, M.D." Woman's Medical Journal, 12:6 (June 1902) 134-137.
[The text of a farewell address to her friends, written several months before her death, is included here.]

Martindale, Louisa. "L. Martindale, M.D., B.S., J.P." Medical Woman's Journal, 31:6 (June1924) 177-178.
[English gynecologist]
Martindale, L[ouise]. A Woman Surgeon. Victor Gollancz Ltd., London, England, 1951.
[Educated at the London School of Medicine]

"Mary Latimer James, M.D.: Westchester, Pa." Medical Woman's Journal, 52:10 (October 1945) 54-57.
[Dr. James traces her life from childhood in Gambier, Ohio through college at Bryn Mawr and Women's Medical College of Pennsylvania. Was medical missionary on the Ute Indian Reservation in Whiterocks, Utah, then in China during the Nationalist revolution in 1911.]

"Medical Student and Interne: Mary Bennett Ritter, M.D., 1886." In: Recollections of Cooper Medical College: 1883-1905. Stanford Medical School, Stanford, California, 1964.
[Dr. Cooper reminisces about student days at Cooper Medical College (same as in her book More Than Gold in California ?)]

Medical Woman's Journal, 56:2 (February 1949) 59.
[Else K. LaRoe, 1923 graduate of medicine at University of Heidelberg and former leader of the German women's movement, describes encounter with Hitler. "'He told her women were good for two things only, to cook and to bear children, and she ordered him out of the office.'" LaRoe is NY plastic surgeon.]

"Meet the Dean: Marion Fay." MD, 6:8 (August 1951) 324-326.
[Marion Fay, Ph.D., dean of Woman's Medical College of Pennsylvania, is interviewed.]

Meldin, Madeleine. The Tender Bud: A Physician's Journey Through Breast Cancer. (Hillsdale, N.J.: Analytic Press, 1993).

Michel, Auguste Marie. A Mutilated Life Story: Strange Fragments of an Autobiography. Sketches of Experiences as a Nurse and Doctor in an African Hospital, and in the American West. Published by Auguste Marie Michel, Chicago, Illinois, 1911.
[Auguste Marie Michel, M.D. was brought up in France, educated at the National Medical University of Chicago.]

Miller, Janet. Jungles Preferred. Houghton Mifflin Company. Boston, Mass., 1931.
[Dr. Miller describes her three years' work in Africa.]

Morantz, Regina Markell, Cynthia Stodola Pomerleau, and Carol Hansen Fenichel, eds. In Her Own Words: Oral Histories of Women Physicians. (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1982).

Morgan, Elizabeth. The Making of a Woman Surgeon. (New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1980).

Morgan, Elizabeth. Solo Practice: A Woman SurgeonÕs Story. (Boston: Little, Brown and Co., 1982).

Morton, Rosalie Slaughter. A Doctor's Holiday in Iran. Funk & Wagnalls Company, New York, New York, 1940.
[Observations on Iran and her experiences there.]
Morton, Rosalie Slaughter. A Woman Surgeon: The Life and Work of Rosalie Slaughter Morton. Frederick A. Stokes Company, New York, New York, 1937.
[Graduated 1897 from Woman's Medical College of Pennsylvania.]

Mosher, Clelia Duel. "Again in the Running. A Series of Sketches from Observations Made by the Author During Her Service in France." Medical Woman's Journal, 28:5 (May 1921) 128-130.
Mosher, Clelia Duel. "All in the Day's Work. A Series of Sketches from Observations Made by the Aughor During Her Service in France." Medical Woman's Journal, 28:4 (April 1921) 95-96.

Muhl, Anita M. "Letters to the Editor." Medical Woman's Journal, 49:8 (August 1942) 260-263.
[Muhl, a doctor from San Diego, California went to Australia in 1938 as a visiting lecturer in psychiatry at the U of Melbourne. Discusses her experiences there, especially after the war started.]

Munro, Jeanette. "Princeton's first pediatrician." 1988 May; 85(5):415-20.

Murray, Florence J. At the Foot of Dragon Hill. E. P. Dutton & Company, Inc., New York, New York, 1975.
(Born in 1894 in Nova Scotia, Canada, Florence Jessie Murray went to the Far East in 1921 as Presbyterian medical missionary. Spent about 42 years in Korea and Manchuria?)

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[Nichols, Mary Sargent (Neal) Gove]. Mary Lyndon; or, Revelations of a Life: An Autobiography. Stringer and Townsend, New York, New York, 1855.
[Autobiographical account of author's career.]

Offenbach, Bertha. "Four of Us: Sketches of the Four Women Ophthalmologists of the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary." Journal of the American Medical Women's Association, 21:7 (July 1966) 595-598.
[Sketches of professional activity interspersed amid personal reflections comprise this article.]

"Old Doc Anna: As Told by Dr. Anna Darrow." Journal of the Florida Medical Association, 55:8 (August 1968) 749-756.
[A pioneer woman doctor in Florida, who began practicing in Okeechobee in 1912.]

Oliphant, Beverly A. "Recipients of the Janet M. Glasgow Awards for Academic Distinction, 1969." Journal of the American Medical Women's Association, 24:10 (October 1969) 829-832.
[Autobiography of 1969 graduate of George Washington University School of Medicine.]

"On Her Golden Graduation Day." Medical Woman's Journal, 54:8 (August 1947) 56.
[Dr. Martha G. K. Schetky, celebrating the 50th anniversary of her graduation from medical school, gives her views on women in medicine.]

Orchard, Ethel. "Two Years Medical Practice in the White Tropics." Medical Women's Federation News-Letter, (January 1934) 38.
[British physician who was appointed to treat Aborigines in Barclay, North Queensland, Australia]

Owens-Adair, B. A. Dr. Owens-Adair: Some of Her Life Experiences. Mann & Beach, Printers, Portland, Oregon, [n.d.]
[Bethenia Owens was born in 1840 and migrated to Oregon in 1843. Married at 14, had a son, divorced at 18, then began elementary school education. Worked as teacher, milliner, then received a degree from Eclectic School of Medicine. In 1880 she received her MD from University of Michigan, later did postgrad work at U of Chicago. Practiced in Oregon and Washington. About 1/5 of this book is autobiography, the rest is lectures, correspondence, etc.]
Owens-Adair, Bethenia Angelina. A Souvenir. Dr. Owens-Adair to Her Friends, Christmas 1922. Statesman Publishing Company, Salem, Oregon, 1922.

Parker, Beulah. The Evolution of a Psychiatrist: Memoirs of a Woman Doctor. (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1987).

Parmalee, Ruth A. "Reminiscences of Twenty Years in the Near East." Women in Medicine, 51 (January 1936) 20-23.
[A missionary child born in Turkey, Parmalee went to the U.S. for her MD, then returned to Turkey as a medical missionary. Also worked in Greece.]

Parrish, Rebecca. Orient Seas and Lands Afar. Fleming H. Revell Company, New York, New York, 1936.
[Dr. Parrish describes her world travels.]

Patterson, Jane and Madaras , Lynda. Woman/Doctor: The Education of Jane Patterson, M.D. (New York: Avon Books, 1967).

Pelzel, Jane Barksdale. "I Was an MD Dropout." Medical Opinion & Review, 7:1 (January 1971) 64-68.
[Dr. Pelzel describes her return to medical practice after many years of staying home with her family.]

Petteys, Anna C. Doctor Portia: Her First Fifty Years in Medicine as Told to Anna C. Petteys. Golden Bell Press, Denver, Colorado, 1964.
[Portia McKnight was the first woman graduate of the North Carolina Medical College in 1912. She married a Russian agronomist named Lubchenco, practiced as a school physician in Moscow from 1914-1917, then fled with her husband and three children. She eventually established a practice in Colorado. Three of her five children became physicians.]

Polk-Peters, Ethel. "Autobiographical Sketch." Medical Review of Reviews. 41:8 (August 1935) 405-409.
[Graduated from Woman's Medical College of Pennsylvania, worked in China, Russia, U.S.]

Powell, Janet Travell and Wensel, Louise Oftedal. "Doctor Wife and Mother." Wellesley Alumnae Magazine. (November 1953) 13-15, 36.
[Two Wellesley grads describe their lives as doctors and mothers. Travell taught pharmacology at Cornell Medical College and has practiced since 1933; Wensel specializes in psychiatry.]

Preston, Frances I. Lady Doctor: Vintage Model. A.H. & A.W. Reed, Wellington, New Zealand, 1974.
[Graduated 1922 from Otago Medical School, Dunedin. Wrote "to cast . . . light on the circumstances and difficulties of medical practice for a woman in the 1920s." Eventually gave up medicine to work as a farm-wife.]

Purdy, Ann. "The Woman Doctor: A Personal Memoir." Stanford M.D., 7:2 (Spring-Summer 1968) 16-18.
[Pediatrician refused admission to McGill Medical School (they did not want another Maude Abbott), was "accepted but not welcomed" at Johns Hopkins Medical School where they had to admit 10% women in return for a $500,000 bequest.]

Quain, Fannie Dunn. "Pioneering in North Dakota." Women in Medicine. 50 (October 1935) 15-17.
[First native of N. Dakota to take a medical degree.]

Rankin, Hattie Love. I Saw It Happen to China (1913-1949). (Harrisburg, Penn.: Mount Pleasant Press, 1960).

Ritter, Mary Bennett. More Than Gold in California: 1849-1933. The Professional Press, Berkeley, California, 1933.
[Attended Cooper Medical College in San Francisco.]

Ross, Ishbel. Child of Destiny: the Life Story of the First Woman Doctor. (New York: Harper, 1949).

Rowland, Mary Canaga. As Long As Life. Edited by F. A. Loomis. (Seattle, Wash.: Storm Peak Press, 1994).

"Ruth V. Hemenway, M.D." Medical Woman's Journal, 52:2 (February 1945) 33.
[Graduated from Tufts Medical School in 1921. Medical missionary work in China 1923-1941; excerpts from her China diary are presented in serial form in various issues of the Journal from 1945-1948.]

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Salber, Eva J. The Mind is Not the Heart: Recollections of a Woman Physician. (Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1989).

Savage, Wendy. A Savage Enquiry. (London: Virago Press, 1986).

Scalia, Joni Lynn. The Cutting Edge. (New York: McGraw Hill, 1978).

Scharlieb, Mary. Reminiscences. Williams and Norgate, London, England, 1924.
[Educated in Madras in the 1870s (at Madras Medical College?) and also studied in England]

Schwendener, Hattie. "Daughters of Science: Dr. Hattie Schwendener, St. Joseph, Mich." Medical Woman's Journal, 36:9 (September 1929) 242-244.
[Born 1858 in Nunda, NY. Graduated 1879 from Wooster University.]

Sebesta, Vilma. "The Year Spent in the United States on the Mary Putnam Jacobi Fellowship of the Women's Medical Association of New York, 1937-38 (Second Part of Report)." Medical Woman's Journal. 46:1 (January 1939) 25-27.
[Dr. Sebesta, of Budapest, reports on her year's work and studies in the U.S.]

Sharkey, Frances. A Parting Gift. (New York: St. MartinÕs Press, 1982.)

Shaw, Anna Howard and Jordan, Elizabeth. The Story of a Pioneer. Harper & Brothers Publishers, New York, New York, 1915.
Available as a Project Gutenberg etext at ftp://uiarchive.cso.uiuc.edu; login as anonymous, password is email address. Directory is /pub/etext/gutenberg/etext.95. File names: stpio10.tst or stpio10.zip
[Was pioneer as teenager in Michigan wilderness in 1860s, graduated from Boston University Theological School in 1878 and served as pastor while attending Boston Medical School. Campaigned for woman suffrage with close friend Susan B. Anthony.]

Sheriff, Hilla. "Letters to the Editor." Medical Woman's Journal, 49:5 (May 1942) 158.
[Graduated 1926 from Medical College of South Carolina; offers her autobiography in this letter.]

"Significant Autobiographies: IV--The Woman Physician." Everybody's Magazine, 9 (August 1903) 226-231.
[An anonymous woman physician describes her motivations to study medicine, her training and her practice.]

Sloop, Mary T. Martin and Blythe, Legette. Miracle in the Hills. McGraw-Hill Book Company, Inc., New York, New York, 1953.
[Graduated from Woman's Medical College of Pennsylvania in 1906 and interned at New England Hospital for Women and Children. Married a physician in 1908, practiced in North Carolina. A daughter also became a doctor. Sloop named American Mother of the Year in 1951.]

Stastny, Olga. "Autobiographical Sketch." Medical Review of Reviews, 41:8 (August 1935) 410-423.
[Started medical school after she was widowed at age 28. Graduated 1913 from University of Nebraska College of Medicine, practiced in Omaha, NE, France and Czechoslovakia.]

Steppanen, Anni. "Finland." Medical Woman's Journal, 55: 9 (September 1948) 26-29.
[Dr. Steppanen of Helsinki tells of her experiences in Finland during the war.]

Stewart, Margaret R. From Dugout to Hilltop. Murray & Gee, Inc., Culver City, California, 1951.
[Graduated from a medical school in San Francisco in 1900 but later graduated also in 1906 from Woman's Medical College of Pennsylvania. Most of career worked in US govt, retired in 1943.]

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Thorburn-Johnstone, Mabel. "Refugee Work in Salonica." Medical Women's Federation News-Letter. (March 1928) 40-42.

Tower, Elizabeth A. "Report from Alaska." Case Western Reserve Medical Alumni Bulletin, 31:4 (Fourth Quarter, 1967) 7.
[Dr. Tower describes her activities in Anchorage, Alaska.]

Travell, Janet. Office Hours: Day and Night. The Autobiography of Janet Travell, M.D. The World Publishing Company, New York, New York, 1968.
[Graduated in 1929 from Cornell Medical School. Personal physician to President Kennedy.]

Ulrich, Mabel S. "Men Are Queer That Way: Extracts from the Diary of an Apostate Woman Physician." Scribner's Magazine, 93 (June 1933) 365-369. Reprinted in the "Lost Women" department of Ms. magazine, July 1972, 11-12, 14 under the title "A Doctor's Diary, 1904-1932."
[Graduated 1905?]

"Vicki Nichols Views Being Black, Female, a Physician." Mayovox, (September 1973) 1, 3.
[An autobiography? An interview? of obstetrics-gynecology resident at Mayo Clinic.]

Vietor, Agnes C., ed. A Woman's Quest: The Life of Marie E. Zakrzewska, M.D. Appleton and Company, New York, New York, 1924.
[MD 1856 Cleveland Medical School.]

Wauchope, Gladys Mary. The Story of a Woman Physician. John Wright & Sons Ltd., Bristol, England, 1963.
[First woman medical student at the London Hospital Medical College, attended 1918-1921.]

Welsh, Lillian. Reminiscences of Thirty Years in Baltimore. (Baltimore: Norman Remington Co., 1925).
[Memoir covers 1890-1925, when Welsh ended a 30 year career as founding professor of the Dept. of Physiology and Hygiene at Goucher College.]

Wharton, May Cravath. Doctor Woman of the Cumberlands: The Autobiography of May Cravath Wharton. Uplans Press, Pleasant Hill, Tennessee, 1953.

Wilberforce, Octavia. Octavia Wilberforce: The Autobiography of a Pioneer Woman Doctor. (London: Cassell, 1989).

Withington, Alfreda. Mine Eyes Have Seen: A Woman Doctor's Saga. E. P. Dutton & Co., Inc., New York, New York, 1941.
[Studied medicine at the Women's Medical College of the New York Infirmary in the 1880's. Practiced in Mass., in Labrador, in France during WW I, and in Kentucky.]
Withington, Alfreda. "The Mountain Doctor [Part I]." Atlantic Monthly, 150:3 (September 1932) 257-267.
Withington, Alfreda. "The Mountain Doctor [Part II]." Atlantic Monthly, 150:4 (October 1932) 469-477.
Withington, Alfreda. "The Mountain Doctor [Part III]." Atlantic Monthly, 150:6 (December 1932) 768-774.
[Serving mountain people of Kentucky. 1924-1930.]

Witthoff, Evelyn. "Thirty-Seven Months in Santo Tomas." Medical Woman's Journal, 52:7 (July 1945) 30-33.
[Witthoff recalls her 37 months as a prisoner on the island.]

"A Woman Who 'Stuck It Out.'" Literary Digest, 85 (4 April 1925) 64-70.
[Based on interview with Eliza M. Mosher, third generation pioneer, after 50 years practice.]

[Wong, Helena.] "Helena Wong, M.D." Medical Woman's Journal. 48:11 (November 1941) 357.

Yarros, Rachelle S. "The Experiences of a Graduate of 1893." In: 75th Anniversary Volume of the Woman's Medical College of Pennsylvania. Westbrook Publishing Company, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, [1925?]
[Autobiographical article of an obstetrician.]

Yarros, Rachelle S. "From Obstetrics to Social Hygiene." Medical Woman's Journal, 33:11 (November 1926) 305-309.
[Born in Russia, MD from Woman's Medical College of Pennsylvania, moved to Chicago in 1894 and in 1899 began to teach at the College of Physicians and Surgeons.]

Zakrzewska, Marie. "Fifty Years Ago--A Retrospect." Woman's Medical Journal, 1:10 (October 1893) 193-195.
Zakrzewska, Marie E. A Woman's Quest: The Life of Marie E. Zakrzewska, M.D. (New York: D. Appleton, 1924).

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Women physicians' autobiographies identified but not yet examined are: Finkler, Rita S. Good Morning, Doctor. (unpubl. typesc. photocopy, ca. 1960)

Also not seen, but described by Dr. Steven Peitzman as follows: a wonderful typescript autobiography of Edith Flower Wheeler, Women's Medical College 1897, with early parts about school years based on letters written at the time to her father. It provides a great deal of information about faculty and school life in the 1890s (a kind of "golden age" for the College). Wheeler calls it "She Saunters into her Past." It is in the Edith Flower Wheeler Collection, Archives and Sepcial Collections on Women in Medicine. There exists another unpublished autobiography by Catherine MacFarlane, also a Women's Medical College graduate (1898) and later a prominent gynecologist and something of a pioneer in cancer screening for women. Copies can be found in the ASCWM , and also in the Library of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia. The ASCWM also hold a diary of Mary Theodora McGavran, graduate of 1895, who went into medical missionary work in India. It is in the McGavran Collection. Excerpts have been published: Robert Kaiser, Sandra Chaff, and Steven Peitzman, "A Philadelphia medical student of the 1890s: the Diary of Mary Theodora McGavran," Penn Mag Hist Biog 108(1984):217-36.

If you know of a woman physicians' autobiography not listed here,
please email pfannenstiel@cctr.umkc.edu

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