LADY DOCTORS: THE UNTOLD STORIES OF INDIAS FIRST WOMEN IN MEDICINE

THIS BOOK TRACES THE UNCONVENTIONAL PATHS FOLLOWED BY INDIA’S FIRST WOMEN DOCTORS, HOW THEY BALANCED WORK AND FAMILY LIVES, AND THEIR IMPACT ON MEDICAL LEARNING FOR WOMEN.Medicine is a highly sought-after career for Indian women today, but how did we get here? Early women doctors in the nineteenth century crossed oceans, escaped child marriages, divorced husbands, and defied Hindu orthodoxy to become ‘lady doctors’. Their deeds are all the more astonishing, given most women were in purdah. Their compelling stories have largely been erased from our textbooks and memories. This book unearths their stories and make them accessible to everyone, so that they are not forgotten.The women included in the book are Anandibai Joshi, Rukhmabai Raut, Kadambini Ganguly, Haimabati Sen and Chennai’s Muthulakshmi Reddy, who would go on to found the Adyar Cancer Hospital.