The name Apgar is familiar to almost everyone who has had a baby. The Apgar score is used worldwide to evaluate newborns’ health. But who knew Dr. Apgar’s first name was Virginia?
You can learn more about Dr. Virginia Apgar, and many other women physicians, on a new Web site called Changing the Face of Medicine: Celebrating America’s Women Physicians (www.nlm.nih.gov/changingthefaceofmedicine/).
The site, designed by the National Library of Medicine, offers engrossing profiles of more than 300 women, many written by the physicians themselves. It also provides resources for those considering a career in medicine; activities that demonstrate doctors’ work; and the opportunity to share your story about an inspiring woman physician.
Ellen More, visiting curator for the site, is a history professor at the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston and author of “Restoring the Balance: Women Physicians and the Profession of Medicine, 1850-1995” (Harvard University Press, 1999).
“There were strongly held beliefs that women were probably not suited to practice medicine,” said More, explaining early resistance to women physicians. “They were thought to be physically weaker and emotionally unstable.”
Through the work of people like Dr. Mary Putnam Jacobi, whose research proved that menstruation did not weaken women, More said, “barriers were slowly knocked down. Now women are doing all kinds of things in medicine.”
