This Side of Doctoring: Reflections from Women in Medicine [Hardcover]

Eliza Lo Chin (Editor)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0761923543 | ISBN-13: 978-0761923541 | Publication Date: December 20, 2001 | Edition: 1st

This Side of Doctoring: Reflections for Women in Medicine offers up an intimate collection of stories, poems, essays, and quotations that captures the joy and heartbreak of being women and being a physician. Editor Eliza Lo Chin (MD, Harvard Medical School) has gathered more than 100 voices that speak to the trials, rewards, and surprises of practicing medicine. Beginning with the writings of early medical pioneers, the anthology weaves a rich patchwork of experiences. 

Raw and honest, This Side of Doctoring acquaints us with worlds we could otherwise only imagine. Throughout these pages you’ll find the expressions of courage, doubt, fatigue, perseverance, frustration, and triumph that make up the lives of women physicians. These are the stories of choosing a life in medicine and the many roadmaps that women follow in living that life.

 

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Any woman contemplating a career as a physician or already working in the profession will gain a good deal of insight from this collection of personal essays and poems by female physicians over the last century and a half. Organized into categories such as "Internship and Residency," "Mothering and Doctoring," and "Barriers," the anthology presents feminine and feminist perspectives on all aspects of a medical career. Most of the pieces are contemporary and previously unpublished, solicited by Chin, an internist and former Columbia University medical professor. In her essay "We're Not in Kansas Anymore: Men as Medical Mentors," pediatrician and author (Her Own Medicine) Sayantani DasGupta describes how her search for a "female" professional mentor turned up a vital male role model instead. Psychiatrist Bhuvana Chandra's evocative poem recalls how much it meant to her father that she became a doctor. Several pieces deal with reconciling the commitment to patients with the commitment to family life, such as Molly Carnes's down-to-earth "Balancing Family and Career: Advice from the Trenches." Chin also provides a historical overview of the barriers that faced 19th-century women physicians like Elizabeth Blackwell, the first woman to graduate from an American medical school, and Harriet Hunt, whose recollections are among the archival pieces featured in the anthology. This is an engaging and frequently inspiring collection.

Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

Review

Like a patchwork quilt, this richly-textured compilation represents each woman’s extraordinary life and career while their common experiences clearly emerge, cutting across different specialties, ages, and geographic divides. 

(Academic Library Book Review )

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 424 pages
• Publisher: Sage Publications, Inc; 1st edition (December 20, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0761923543
• ISBN-13: 978-0761923541
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 5.9 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,939,865 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This book touches deep longing for sisterhood., January 12, 2002

By 

Elaine Stillwell (Philadelphia, PA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: This Side of Doctoring: Reflections from Women in Medicine (Hardcover)

As a recent med school graduate, I found this book to be enlightening on many fronts. I have wrestled with similar issues and have had to make my own hard choices about my career and life, while living with the guilt and self-doubt of my decisions. This book touched a nerve with me because it presents the many issues women in the field of medicine have to deal with daily, and for the rest of their lives from the perspective of women who have tread this path and understand the complex conflicts and possibilities of being a woman and being in medicine. I especially enjoyed the section on the early pioneers of woman in medicine, as well as sections written by doctors who faced much harder decisions in their time, and helped make the options available to today's modern med school graduate possible. My favorite part though, is the way the editor culled not just stories and histories from her contributors, but POEMS which evoke the emotional struggle of women in medicine, that many have had to repress and not face in their daily hectic time short juggling routine. I found myself forced to stop running on the treadmill of life and really reflect. Thank you for helping me to really reflect on my own life in medicine and for helping me honor and respect those who have made the joys of medicine and womanhood possible for everyone.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Essential resource for all women in medicine, January 21, 2002

By 

[e-mail] (Los Angeles, CA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: This Side of Doctoring: Reflections from Women in Medicine (Hardcover)

This book is not only informative and enlightening but enjoyable and inspiring. There is something in this book for everyone, whether you are a medical student, premed, physician or retired physician. Historians, feminists and the medical community will also find this book invaluable. 'This Side of Doctoring' is like a time-capsule of women in medicine, from the days of pioneer Elizabeth Blackwell to female medical students today (who are also still pioneering change in medicine). Lo Chin has compiled the who, what, why, when and how of women doctors. The stories, essays, and especially poems, capture the spirit of women physicians past and present. With more than 100 women's stories, it accurately portrays the sacrifices and rewards of this challenging career. I especially enjoyed the chapters on mothering, the early pioneers and barriers to women in medicine. Because it is an anthology, you can digest at your own convenience, read one piece or a chapter, good for busy women like me! It is a book to which I will constantly refer.

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A wonderful resource and support for women physicians., February 7, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: This Side of Doctoring: Reflections from Women in Medicine (Hardcover)

Having recently graduated residency with two young children, I couldn't stop reading this book. I want to plaster these essays on the cover of the Wall Street Journal: this is why medical training has to change! I am buying this book for all of my friends.