MDNews - Central New York

Female T HE CENTRAL NEW YORK area, past and present, has made significant contributions to enabling the ever-expanding role of women in medicine. On January 23, 1849, Elizabeth Blackwell became the first woman in the United States to be awarded a medical degree from an accredited medical school. Dr. Blackwell attended Geneva Medical College, a forerunner of what is now SUNY Upstate Medical University. Among the streets on the SUNY Upstate Medical University campus is one named "Elizabeth Blackwell Street." Dr. Blackwell's picture is on the cover of SUNY Upstate Medical University, A Pictorial History by Eric v.d. Luft. Author Luft wrote, "Women have practiced medicine since antiquity, but until the middle of the 19th century were generally denied the M.D. degree and the other formal credentials of the profession." In 1876, Sarah Loguen, who was born in Syracuse, became the first African- American female physician to graduate from what was then Syracuse University's College of Physicians and Surgeons. She was a daughter of a local physician. Among her medical mentors was Dr. Michael D. Benedict, her family physician and a president of the Onondaga County Medical Society. According to Luft's book, Dr. Loguen, later Dr. Loguen Fraser after her marriage to a pharmacist, was "prob- ably the fourth African-American woman physician in the United States, the second in New York and the first in the nation to earn her M.D. at a coeducational, regular medical school." The Onondaga County Medical Society, founded in 1806, did not admit women as members for its first 68 years of exis- tence. The society's first female member was Dr. Elizabeth Holcomb in 1874. Dr. Margaret Stanton was elected the soci- ety's first female president in 1899, 21 years before passage of the 19th Amendment gave women the right to vote. It was almost another 100 years before the society elected its second female president, Dr. Patricia A. Randall, a radiologist, in 1997. Dr. Colleen E. O'Leary, an anesthesiologist, was elected president in 1999, and Dr. Joyce S. Garber, a psychiatrist, became president in 2002. At the state level, the first female presi- dent of the Medical Society of the State of New York (MSSNY) was Dr. Ann Cea, a radiologist from Westchester County, who assumed that office in 2002, nearly 200 years after the state society was established in 1807. Following her presidency of the Onondaga County Medical Society, Dr. Randall was elected to the governing body of MSSNY, representing 10 counties in our area. She later served as chair of MSSNY's Board of Trustees. The first woman to serve as president of the American Medical Association (AMA) was Dr. Nancy Dickey, a family physician in Texas. During her year as president of the AMA, Dr. Dickey visited Syracuse in 1997 and addressed a mem- bership meeting of the Onondaga County Medical Society. The next morning, Dr. Dickey spoke at Syracuse University's Thursday Morning Roundtable. She received rave reviews from those in the audience. One usually critical attendee remarked that her presentation "was the best talk I've ever heard from a physician." Dr. Dickey's election as AMA president came 150 years after the founding of the organization in 1847 by Dr. Nathan Davis, a 30-year-old male physician from Binghamton, NY. A number of Central New York ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ ONONDAGA COUNTY MEDICAL SOCIETY ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ +++ +++ + + LEADERSin Medicine By Gerald N. Hoffman female physicians have been leaders at the national level. Most recently, Dr. Patricia J. Numann, a local retired surgeon at SUNY Upstate Medical University, was elected president of the American College of Surgeons. In 2010, Dr. Sharon Brangman, a geriatrician, was elected president of the American Geriatrics Society. She heads SUNY Upstate Medical University's Geriatric Medicine program. The number of local female medical students has increased significantly over the years. In the school's first six years, 17% of the graduates of Syracuse University's College of Physicians and Surgeons were women. By the time the Onondaga County Medical Society celebrated its 200th anniversary in 2006, nearly 50% of enter- ing medical students at SUNY Upstate Medical University were women, and that figure continues to increase. Female patients increasingly are show- ing a preference to have female physicians treat them. Staff at the Onondaga County Medical Society takes that into account when answering inquiries from female callers seeking new physicians. Despite tremendous progress, female physicians continue to face challenges in their chosen profession. Many female physicians balance a medical career with the challenges of being a wife and mother. Their multiple responsibilities are prompting more female medical school graduates to gravitate to specialties with regular hours. Gerald N. (Jerry) Hoffman is Executive Vice President of the Onondaga County Medical Society and is co-author of two books, Medical Malpractice Insurance, A Legislator's View, and The History of Local Medical Care, 1806–2006. ■ MDNEWS.COM ■ MD NEWS Central New York | 5

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