Gladys Mary Wauchope (1889–1966): Brighton physician and second female medical student at the London Hospital Medical College

Gladys Mary Wauchope was a pioneering woman physician and general practitioner in London and Brighton. Descended from an ancient Scottish family, she was the second female medical student at the London Hospital Medical College after Elizabeth Garrett Anderson, enrolling during the brief period from 1918 to 1928 in which women were permitted to study medicine in mainstream London medical schools due to shortages of doctors caused by the First World War. Unperturbed by opposition to her gender from male colleagues, she was initially house physician on the firm of Sir Robert Hutchison at ‘the London’, and went on to hold an array of posts in large London hospitals at a time when finding such work was challenging for women doctors. She settled in Hove as a general practitioner in 1924, later becoming a consultant physician at several major Brighton hospitals. Made only the eighth female fellow of the Royal College of Physicians, she also set up the first diabetic clinic in Sussex and Kent. Gladys authored several books, including her autobiography ‘The Story of a Woman Physician’, which documents life through two world wars and the introduction of the National Health Service, whilst keenly observing the changing landscape of medicine and its place in society.

Merit Ptah, “The First Woman Physician”: Crafting of a Feminist History with an Ancient Egyptian Setting

Merit Ptah is widely described as “the first woman physician and scientist” on the Internet and in popular history books. This essay explores the origins of this figure, showing that Merit Ptah came into being in the 1930s when Kate Campbell Hurd-Mead misinterpreted a report about an authentic ancient Egyptian healer. Merit Ptah gradually became a prominent figure in popular historical accounts during second-wave of feminism, and, in the twenty-first century she appeared in Wikipedia and subsequently spread throughout the Internet as a female (sometimes black African) founding figure. The history of Merit Ptah reveals powerful mechanisms of knowledge creation in the network of amateur historians, independently from the scholarly community. The case of Merit Ptah also pinpoints factors enabling the spread of erroneous historical accounts: the absence of professional audience, the development of echo chambers due to an obscured chain of knowledge transmission, the wide reach of the Internet, the coherence with existing preconceptions, the emotional charge of heritage, and even – in the case of ancient Egypt – the tendency to perceive certain pasts through a legendary lens. At the same time, the story of Merit Ptah reveals how important role models have been for women entering science and medicine.

Spiritual Care of the Woman Physician: Insights from Edith Stein and the Catholic Tradition

In the face of physician stress, burn-out, divorce, and suicide, the spiritual care of the Catholic woman physician must be addressed. Employing the insights of Edith Stein and the Catholic tradition, this article presents both theoretical propositions and practical applications regarding the three primary spheres of the woman physician's life: the spiritual, the familial, and the professional. Since woman's ultimate vocation is union with God through self-gift, prayer must occupy a central place in her life. Because she is wife and mother, family relationships must be given priority over the professional activity that is also her inestimable gift to humanity.

The Woman Physician as Antidote to the Ills of Modern Medicine

This article, drawing on the work of Edith Stein, reflects on the feminine aspects of the medical profession, specifically attention to the whole person and personal accompaniment. It presents these feminine aspects, in light of the mechanistic, highly specialized, and often impersonal ethos of modern medicine, as a needed corrective to such an ethos. Finally, this thesis is illustrated with an example from physician Victoria Sweet.