Changing the Face of Medicine: Celebrating America's Women Physicians. Exhibition and Web site (review)

Changing the Face of Medicine traces the ways that women physicians of different heritages and orientations have gained access to medical education, contributed to scientific knowledge, overcome prejudice and discrimination, entered a variety of specialties, excelled in their fields, and, in the process, redefined and expanded the ways that medicine is practiced. The dominant framework of the exhibit is the history of women's progress over time, with clusters of biographical substories that introduce themes—notably those of culture, personal identity, gender, scientific inquiry, social consciousness, and race. The result is an interdisciplinary exhibit that works on several levels, and that leaves an overall impression of the enrichment that has come to all of us generally with women's participation in the profession.

Curators Manon Perry and Ellen S. More successfully interweave approaches from the fields of women's history, the history of medicine, and cultural studies to present a multifaceted, kaleidoscopic examination of their "changing face" theme. They combine photographs and graphics, historical documents, facsimiles, audiovisuals, and interactives with personal memorabilia. They establish a collective and empowering tone at the outset, with a huge interactive map of the United States on which the faces of women physicians dot the face of the nation. Visitors can use technology to explore the data set by medical specialty, geographical location, era, and other parameters, and to see their searches translated into different patterns of lights across the map.

In the main body of the exhibit, the story unfolds in modular fashion from nineteenth-century beginnings ("Setting Their Sights") to twentieth-century accomplishments ("Making Their Mark" and "Changing Medicine"). In each section a select set of physicians is profiled; emblematic of advances in their time, they are also representative of varied cultural backgrounds and personal and clinical choices. Wall-and-case displays are supplemented in each section by looped audio-video vignettes that present additional women's stories.

Throughout the exhibition, physical objects serve a talismanic purpose. From surgical kits to microscopes, there are icons of professional skills, innovations, and discoveries. Other items reflect values, community identifications, and social consciousness incorporated into medical work. Helen Taussig's Medal of Freedom hangs near a bottle of thalidomide, which she sought to ban. Alice Hamilton's industrial-reform story is graced by a Hull House teacup. Katherine Flores, raised in a Catholic farmworker family, is represented by a harvesting bucket and an image of the Virgin of Guadalupe. A young Linda Shortliffe is pictured with her parents, Japanese-Americans who were interned during World War II. In the "Changing Medicine" module, displayed items emphasize the way that culture and spirituality transform approaches to healing and deepen a practitioner's outreach: Lori Arviso Alvord's Navajo heritage is reflected in a bear fetish that she carries with her in her work. A butterfly symbolizes the transformative body-and-soul process of death in a case devoted to the work of Elizabeth Kübler-Ross, and Susan Briggs's hard hat represents her work in trauma and international disaster response. These touches add personal richness while they convey the ways that these women have added to scientific knowledge, served new communities, administered institutions, and broadened the scope of medical practice and public policy. A final section ("Making a Statement") features ways in which women doctors have "dressed for work"—from Mae Jemison's garb as an astronaut, to Surgeon General Antonia Novello's military uniform. Far from emphasizing the equation of "women" with "fashion," this section points to variety in individual expression and self-actualization, as well as to skill-sets that female doctors have excelled in outside the medical profession. The visitor is reminded that women doctors have transformed realms previously exclusive to men, be those the surgical amphitheater, the Olympic arena, or outer space.

The Web site lacks the artifacts that lend such dimension and interest to the exhibit. It offers, instead, excellent ongoing educational value, and a wealth of information on...