Description

The New York Times Bestseller

The triumphant story of three courageous women who become the first female doctors.

‘These women changed the world’ – Nina Sankovitch, bestselling author of American Rebels

In the early 1800s, women were dying in large numbers from treatable diseases because they avoided receiving medical care. Examinations performed by male doctors were often demeaning and painful, and women faced damaging social stigma from illness.

Despite countless obstacles, Elizabeth Blackwell, Elizabeth Garrett Anderson and Sophia Jex-Blake fought for a woman’s place in the male-dominated medical field. The three pioneers earned medical degrees and paved the way for other women to do the same, then built women-run hospitals and teaching colleges – creating for the first time medical care for women by women.

Publisher Review

'Olivia Campbell's Women in White Coats is a lovingly rendered, joyfully expressed history of extraordinary medical women. With a storyteller's flair, Campbell chronicles their struggles, setbacks, and stridently hard-won triumphs across decades and continents. I emerged from the book both humbled and inspired' - Rachel Vorona Cote, author of Too Much: How Victorian Constraints Still Bind Women Today 'A fascinating, absorbing, and inspiring account of three women who set out to become doctors at a time when female doctors were desperately needed but hard to find. By overcoming obstacles of professional discrimination, personal heartaches, and societal suspicions, these women realized their dreams and changed the world' - Nina Sankovitch, bestselling author of American Rebels 'An engrossing portrait of a transformative moment in Victorian medicine, when women doctors demanded the right to heal and be healed. Their battle was collective, and their hard-won triumph is ours. Women in White Coats is a timely reminder of just how many hands it takes to move mountains' - Claire L. Evans, author of Broad Band: The Untold Story of the Women Who Made the Internet 'The uplifting story of three friends ... who became the first women to earn medical degrees. Faced with obstacles at every turn, it's a story of single-minded resilience' - Stylist 'Resolute Elizabeth, self-effacing Lizzie, publicity wooing Sophia: these trailblazers were on a radical quest for nothing less than equality, and as well as the slog and loneliness, Campbell's intensively researched book captures some of the thrill ... paints a rounded picture of each woman's loves and losses, showing how intimately their private lives shaped their professional' - Hephzibah Anderson, Mail on Sunday 'The story of three Victorian women's triumph over male prejudice in the medical profession... genuinely well-researched...excellent research' - Leyla Sanai, The Spectator 'What it took for these women to achieve their dream of becoming registered doctors in the face of determined opposition from the male medical establishment will make you bang your head against a brick wall multiple times... But the women chipped away, in the face of the men's tantrums which "knew no bounds", as Olivia Campbell writes in her lively chronicle' - Ysenda Maxtone Graham, Daily Mail 'This thoroughly-researched book brings to life the personalities of the first women doctors ... reads as a compelling story as well as an historical account ... This lovely book sets out the trials and tribulations that these first women doctors had to endure as well as the personality quirks that characterised them. I felt I really got to know them as individuals as well as the time in history that they were living through' - Hannah Milton, British Journal of General Practice