HSLS Update

Changing the Face of Medicine

Exhibit to Open at Falk Library on August 24

Women physicians are the subject of a new traveling exhibit that will open at Falk Library on August 24. 'Changing the Face of Medicine: Celebrating America's Women Physicians" chronicles the struggle of American women over the past two centuries for access to medical education and to work in the medical specialty of their choice.

The exhibit begins with Elizabeth Blackwell, who in 1849 became the first woman to earn an MD in the United States, and continues up to today’s women physicians, who have succeeded in work that once would have been considered "unsuitable" for them. "Changing the Face of Medicine" features the life stories of over 300 women—a diverse and accomplished group of American physicians whose work in research, teaching, administration, and a broad range of medical specialties has benefited patients, communities, and science.

PHOTO: May Edward Chinn, MD, examining a young patient, 1930. Dr. Chinn graduated from medical school in 1926 and practiced medicine in Harlem for 50 years.  Source: George B. Davis, PhD

The University of Pittsburgh can point to two exhibit honorees on its current faculty:

• Katherine Detre, Distinguished Professor of Epidemiology at the University’s Graduate School of Public Health. Dr. Detre is an internationally-recognized epidemiologist who has led nationwide studies of coronary artery disease and diabetes.
•  Jeannette South-Paul, Professor and Chair of the University’s Department of Family Medicine. Dr. South-Paul (also a University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine graduate) is the first woman and first African American to serve as a permanent department chair in the School of Medicine.

The National Library of Medicine (NLM), Bethesda, MD, and the American Library Association, Chicago, organized the exhibit with support from the NLM, the National Institutes of Health Office of Research on Women’s Health, and the American Medical Women’s Association. The traveling exhibit is based on a larger exhibit that was displayed at the NLM from 2003 to 2005.

Falk Library is first on the itinerary for the exhibit, hosting it through October 14. The exhibit will then proceed on to other libraries through 2010. Itinerary slots were awarded to 61 academic and public libraries around the country based on a competitive proposal process.

The exhibit will be free and open to the public during regular Falk Library hours. Groups will be welcome to visit by appointment. Following an opening reception on September 7, the library will sponsor free public programs on exhibit themes, beginning with a lecture on September 8 by pediatrician and historian Hughes Evans, MD, PhD of the University of Alabama at Birmingham.

Two interactive kiosks traveling with the exhibit give visitors access to the exhibit Web site www.nlm.nih.gov/changingthefaceofmedicine, featuring information on medicine as a career, lesson plans for classroom activities, and "Share Your Story," which invites the public to add the names and biographies of women physicians they know.

Watch for program announcements and details on the HSLS Web site www.hsls.pitt.edu as the summer progresses. For more information, contact Patricia Weiss, exhibit coordinator, at 412-648-2040 or pwf@pitt.edu.

--Patricia Weiss