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Ann Thorac Surg 2001;71:S14-S18
© 2001 The Society of Thoracic Surgeons

Contributions of women to general thoracic surgery

Harold C. Urschel, Jr, MDa

a Department of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery, University of Texas Southwestern Medical School, Baylor University Medical Center, Dallas, Texas, USA

Address reprint requests to Dr Urschel, 3600 Gaston Ave, Suite 1201, Dallas, TX 75246
e-mail: urschell@airmail.net

Presented at the Women in Thoracic Surgery Symposium, Thirty-sixth Annual Meeting of The Society of Thoracic Surgeons, Fort Lauderdale, FL, Jan 31, 2000.

Why are we here? Because of the:

Joy of surgery

The magic stuff

The grail that once moved every doctor in this room

To become a surgeon

Even now beckons through the jading mist

Of tedium and time—

Strip away the corrupting dullness

Look fresh at the most splendiferous

Of all professions

Clement A. Hiebert, MD

Presidential Address to the New England Surgical Society

What is wrong with this picture (Fig 1)? Here is one female General Thoracic Surgeon amidst "murderers’ row." Leslie Kohman, MD, founder of the Women in Thoracic Surgery in 1986, was the first woman elected to the Residency Review Committee for Thoracic Surgery. A similar situation existed on the American Board of Thoracic Surgery when Carolyn E. Reed, MD, became the first woman elected to the Board. These landmark firsts usher in an era that is long overdue and I think genuinely appreciated by all members of the Thoracic Surgical "Guild," as well as our patients.



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  		Fig 1. Residency Review Committee for Thoracic Surgery, circa 1996, showing only one female general thoracic surgeon—Leslie Kohman, MD. (The other woman in the picture is secretary to the Committee.)

 
The groundwork for these achievements has been laid for generations by a multitude of people—women and men—many of whom are not surgeons [1–6]. Apropos is the reminder "The Past is Prologue" cut into stone outside the Archives of the United States. Thoracic and cardiovascular surgery as well as the whole medical profession is based on the personal qualities of compassion, caring, and service—qualities characteristic of women.

Florence Nightingale in the Crimea, and subsequently Great Britain, established a school of nursing, a monumental step, which for years has contributed significantly, in partnership with thoracic surgeons, to medical advances and the care of patients [7]. Although American medical . . . [Full Text of this Article]






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