Dr. Jessie Wright: Breaking New Ground in Pediatric Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation

摘要

Any history of the growth and acceptance of physical medicine and rehabilitation (PM&R) as a medical specialty in the United States must include an appreciation of the barriers to and rise of women in medicine. Both histories actually began in the 19th century. Pros-thetics were developed for survivors of amputations in the Civil War in the mid to late 1800s, and the American electrotherapy medical societies of the 1890s presaged the development of the physical therapeutics of modern musculoskeletal medicine [1]. The mid 19th century also was an historic time for women in medicine. Elizabeth Blackwell, the first woman to receive a medical degree in the United States, graduated from the Geneva Medical College (now the State University of New York Upstate Medical University) in 1849 and overcame, at least to some extent, the prejudicial attitudes and barriers for women in medicine [2].