Breve historial médico femenino
Why is a female’s surgical history so important to bring up? For centuries, women were denied medical knowledge and technological progress since it was considered a male-dominated field of study.
When plastic surgery took its first steps towards reconstruction practices in the Middle Ages, women were banned from participating in such trials. In 1540, the statute for the “Compagnia dei Barbieri Chirurghi”, the first surgeons’ association, excluded women from any type of practice. In the 14th century, King Henry VIII said, “No carpenter, blacksmith, weaver or women, they will practice surgery.”
However, history has not always been so harsh; the ancient world had welcomed women to participate in scientific knowledge. According to discoveries, female medical students were present in Heliopolis, Egypt, 1500 BC. Aesculapius, son of Apollo, had four daughters who were physicians in Ancient Greece. The Tetrabiblion, written by Atius (150 CE), details the surgical procedures of Aspasia, a Greco-Roman female surgeon. Until the 11th century, this was considered the main surgical text.
And what about the 19th century? Women never made up more than 6% of any medical school class in the United States or Canada before 1970. In those years, the feminist movement, an increase in the number of women graduating from college, and numerous vacancies encouraged women to apply to medical school.
In 1970, women made up around 5% of all physicians in the United States; by 2001, that percentage had risen to 24%. The American Association of Medical Colleges (AAMC) estimated that medical school enrollment is about equal between men and women.
Dr. J.M. Barry, el “muchacho imberbe”
Dr J.M. Barry
The history of the female surgeons opens with the fascinating story of Dr James Berry (1795–1865), also known by the name of “beardless lad”.
Dr Barry attended the esteemed Edinburgh Medical School and graduated at the age of 17 in 1812. During the Napoleonic wars, he served in the army as a physician, and in 1820, at the request of a wealthy client whose wife appeared to be in labour, he conducted one of the first successful Caesarean sections.
Although Dr Barry lived his entire adult private and professional life as a man, he was born Margaret Ann and was known as a female throughout his infancy. The choice to change his gender would partly be to gain acceptance as a university student and pursue a career as a surgeon; only after a post-mortem examination was Barry’s biological sex revealed to the public and military colleagues.
A friend commented that “She chose to be a military doctor upon her death. Not to fight for the right of a woman to become one, but simply to be one”.
Alma Dea Morani – De la escultura a la cirugía plástica
Dra. Alma Dea Morani
Her father wanted her to be a successful sculptor, but she chose to dedicate her life to medicine and become the world’s first female plastic surgeon.
Alma Dea Morani was born in New York City in 1907 to Amalia Gracci Morani and artist Salvatore Natali Morani, from whom she inherited a strong aesthetic sense.
Morani earned her M.D. from the Woman’s Medical College of Pennsylvania in 1931. In 1946, she started her training in St. Louis under renowned plastic surgeon “Colonel” J. Barrett Brown, M.D. It took her six years to find a course that would accept women, but her fellowship only permitted her to observe, not operate.
She made the best of these restrictions and used her skills as an artist to observe and make sketches and pictures before and after surgical procedures. Colonel Brown eventually noticed her intense work, and he finally allowed her to assist him in surgery “on Saturdays when everybody else went to play golf,” letting her complete a true clinical fellowship.
Dr Morani returned to Woman’s Medical College of Pennsylvania, where she was appointed clinical professor of general surgery and plastic surgery until 1975.
Helen Octavia Dickens – la primera mujer negra admitida en el Colegio Americano de Cirujanos
Dra. Helen Octavia Dickens
In 1950, Dr Helen Dickens was the first African American woman admitted to the American College of Surgeons. She often recalled her medical school class, when she opted to sit in the front row to avoid being bothered by her classmates’ racist comments and gestures because she was the daughter of a slave.
Dr Dickens was always motivated and inspired by the achievements of other African American women who had gone before her. Helen Dickens, the only African-American woman in her class, received her M.D. from the same college in 1934 and became associate dean of the University of Pennsylvania’s Office for Minority Affairs in 1969. Within five years, she had boosted minority enrollment from 3 to 64 students.
Dr Dickens educated young women to empower themselves. She used her research to advise schools, parents, and health professionals on intervention strategies to lower the incidence of teen pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases. She received numerous honours for her work on sexual health for young and adult women.
Dora Richter – La primera mujer trans operada para confirmar su sexo
Dora Richter
La historia de la medicina está trazada no sólo por médicos y cirujanos, sino también por pacientes valientes que optan por ser de los primeros en someterse a un procedimiento.
Hoy hemos decidido hablarte de Dora Richter, la primera mujer transexual del mundo que se sometió a una operación de confirmación de sexo.
Dora nació en 1891 en Alemania, en el seno de una familia campesina pobre.
A pesar de que su nombre de nacimiento era Rudolph, sus padres le permitieron vivir libre de su identificación de género durante toda su infancia.
Vivió su vida adulta en Berlín, donde fue detenida ocasionalmente por el “delito” de travestirse y condenada a una prisión de hombres.
Finalmente, Dora fue confiada al cuidado de Magnus Hirschfeld, médico alemán y uno de los primeros activistas de los derechos sexuales.
Dirigió el Instituto de Investigación Sexual, donde Dora trabajó como ama de llaves durante más de diez años.
En 1922 se sometió a una orquiectomía y una vaginoplastia.
Por lo que sabemos, eso la convirtió en la primera persona en someterse a una cirugía de confirmación de sexo.
Su muerte se debió probablemente a un atentado nazi en el instituto en 1933.
Ada Lovelace – La madre de la informática moderna
Ada Lovelace
Como empresa DeepTech, no podemos olvidar a Ada Lovelace, la mujer que contribuyó al desarrollo de la informática moderna.
Hoy se la reconoce oficialmente como la primera programadora informática de la historia. Ada Lovelace era hija única del poeta Lord Byron y de Anne Isabella Milbanke, matemática.
Sus habilidades matemáticas la llevaron a una larga relación de trabajo y amistad con Charles Babbage, considerado“el padre de los ordenadores“. El trabajo de Babbage sobre la Máquina Analítica despertó especialmente su curiosidad. Las notas de Lovelace son importantes en la historia temprana de los ordenadores porque contienen lo que se considera el primer programa informático, es decir, un algoritmo diseñado para ser ejecutado por una máquina. Ada describió su enfoque como“ciencia poética” y a sí misma como“Analista (y Metafísica)“, esta mentalidad la llevó a indagar sobre el Motor Analítico y sobre cómo los individuos y la sociedad interactúan con la tecnología como herramienta de colaboración.
Bibliografía
Wirtzfeld, Debrah A. “La historia de las mujeres en cirugía“. Revista Canadiense de Cirugía.
Revista Canadiense de Cirugía Asociación Médica Canadiense, agosto de 2009.
“Dr. James Barry: Crítica de Una mujer adelantada a su tiempo: una exquisita historia de escandaloso subterfugio”. The Guardian, Guardian News and Media, 10 Nov. 2016
“Cambiando el rostro de la medicina | Alma Dea Morani“. Biblioteca Nacional de Medicina de EE.UU., Institutos Nacionales de Salud, 3 de junio de 2015.
