After becoming the first Navajo woman to be board-certified in surgery in 1994, LORI ARVISO ALVORD realized there was a way for her to give back. After completing her training at Stanford University, she returned for six years to the New Mexico reservation where she had grown up, according to the “CHANGING THE FACE OF MEDICINE: CELEBRATING AMERICA’S WOMEN PHYSICIANS” traveling exhibit at Southern Illinois University School of Medicine.
“I went back to the healers of my tribe to learn what a surgical residency could not teach me. From them, I have heard a resounding message: Everything in life is connected,” Alvord was quoted as saying in 2002.
Alvord’s photo and story are among dozens about female physicians that are displayed through May 12 in “Changing the Face of Medicine” at the SIU medical library (fourth floor), 801 N. Rutledge St. The exhibit is open to the public from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. weekdays.
The exhibit tells the story of how American women who wanted to practice medicine struggled over the past two centuries to gain access to medical education and to work in the medical specialty they chose. In 1849, Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell was the first woman to earn an M.D. degree in the United States.
Exhibit categories include “Making a Difference,” “Fighting for Rights,” “Confronting Prejudice” and “Achieving Breakthroughs.”
Among female physicians credited with medical breakthroughs was VIRGINIA APGAR (1909-74), who in 1952 developed the Apgar score, the first standardized way to evaluate the general health of a newborn baby. The test quickly determines whether the baby will need to be resuscitated.
“Virginia Apgar originally trained as a surgeon, but because other women had been unable to build successful careers in surgery, the chief of the department at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons encouraged her to study anesthesiology instead,” the exhibit notes.
“Apgar studied obstetrical anesthesia — the effects of maternal anesthesia given during childbirth on the newborn baby.”
Obstetrician and gynecologist HELEN DICKENS (1909-2001), who founded a teen clinic for school-age mothers in Philadelphia, was the first African-American woman admitted to the American College of Surgeons.
Other physicians noted in the exhibit include:
• MATILDA EVANS (1872-1935), who founded Taylor Lane Hospital in 1901.
• GERTY CORI (1896-1957), the first U.S. woman to receive the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. In 1947, she and her husband were named joint recipients for their work on the cycle of carbohydrates in the human body.
• Dermatologist NANCY JASSO helped found a tattoo-removal clinic.
Two interactive kiosks traveling with the exhibition offer access to the National Library of Medicine’s “Local Legends” Web site, which has access to educational and professional resources for people considering medicine as a career.
A section of the Web site called “Share Your Story” allows the public to add the names and biographies of female physicians they know. (To add a favorite woman to the roster, click on “Share Your Story” at the online exhibition,www.nlm.nih.gov/changingthefaceofmedicine.)
Tamara Browning is a columnist and feature writer for The State Journal-Register. She can be reached at 788-1534 ortamara.browning@sj-r.com.