Changing the Face of Medicine: An Exhibit
The Changing the Face of Medicine: Celebrating America's Women Physicians exhibit opened on October 14, 2003 at the National Library of Medicine (NLM). This exhibit, which features over 300 physicians, also has a website that serves as its companion (http://www.nlm.nih.gov/changingthefaceofmedicine/). This web companion to the exhibit includes a variety of resources that are useful and valuable to medical librarians, physicians, teachers, students, and many others:
- Web-based activities to engage visitors in online learning about the human body and about exceptional physicians that have improved our quality of life
- A "Share your story" section with online forms to share stories about physicians
- Web-based video streams of interviews with featured physicians
- A search feature that retrieves physicians by state, ethnicity, specialty, and medical school
- Information on becoming a medical doctor
- Three bibliographies that highlight women in medicine. The book and video bibliographies are geared for K-12 students. The research bibliography covers women in the history of medicine as well as autobiographies.
- Lesson plans for K-12 teachers covering women in medicine
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| Dr. Vivia Belle Appleton practiced pediatrics in Hawaii for fifty years | Dr. Susan La Flesche Picotte, the first American Indian woman in the United States to receive a medical degree |
When the exhibit closes in 2005, it will begin a tour across the United States (the dates and locations have not yet been determined). Also, there will be a DVD available to purchase through the Friends of the National Library of Medicine (FNLM) (http://www.fnlm.org/). If you are interested in ordering a copy of the DVD, send an email to Alec Stone of FNLM at alec@fnlm.org. Please include the following information:
- Your name
- Your institution
- Number of copies desired
Try using the exhibit's website as a way to highlight your library's collection, engage in conversations with your institution's physicians and local teachers, as well as strike up a conversation with a librarian at a public library in your area. Andrea Lynch
[Editor's Note: Those of you interested in women in medicine should also note that NLM's Profiles of Science web site has added the papers of anatomist and researcher Florence R. Sabin. She was recognized for her work on the origins of the lymphatic system, blood cells, immune system cells, and the pathology of tuberculosis. She was the first woman to hold a full professorship at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, the first woman elected to the National Academy of Sciences, and the first woman to head a department at the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research. You can view an exhibit of her work at http://profiles.nlm.nih.gov/RR/]