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Doctors Wanted: Women Encouraged to Apply. A Historical Analysis of Women in Osteopathic Medical Education
Karacay, K. C. [1]

Journal: Unpublished PhD thesis The University of Iowa, Date: 2020/05, Pages: 244. doi: Subito , type of study: review

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Keywords:

female [379]
history [231]
narrative review [39]
osteopathic medicine [1540]
USA [1086]
women [333]

Abstract:

This dissertation utilizes historical methods and archival resources to examine the history of women in osteopathic medical schools from the 1890s to 1950. I focus on five of the main osteopathic schools: ATSU in Kirksville, MO (formerly the American School of Osteopathy), Midwestern University in Downers Grove, IL (formerly the Chicago College of Osteopathy), the Philadelphia College of Medicine (formerly the Philadelphia College of Osteopathy), Des Moines University (formerly the S.S. Still College of Osteopathy and Surgery) and the Kansas City University of Medicine and Bioscience (formerly Kansas City College of Osteopathy and Surgery). Osteopathic medicine was one of the last unorthodox forms of medicine to be created in the nineteenth century and was open to women at a time when women were routinely rejected from conventional (MD) medical schools, or allowed admission only in small numbers. This work will contribute to the historiography of women in medicine and women in higher education by adding the educational experiences of women in osteopathic schools, a population and type of education that has previously been overlooked by scholars. More critically, it will contribute to the historiography of women in professional education and the role that a field’s professionalization plays in gender ideologies.My overarching argument is that a profession’s identity shapes its gender ideations and these ideations also shape professional training. In the case of osteopathic medicine, its transformation from a separate and unorthodox form of medicine in the nineteenth century to a mainstreamed form of medicine similar in education and practice to conventional (MD) medicine led to the gradual adoption of more traditional gender ideals by the 1930s-1940s. While few scholars have studied women in osteopathic medicine, those who have focused on the wider social trends that encouraged women to stay at home in the early to mid-twentieth century. While societal pressure was certainly a factor, the declining numbers of women in osteopathic medicine cannot be explained solely by social pressure. The primary factor forcing women out from the osteopathic profession in the 1930s and 1940s was the increasingly masculine environment at osteopathic schools, and a changing curriculum that brought osteopathy closer in philosophy and practice with conventional medicine, which, by the 1900s, was an elite profession for middleclass and wealthy men. While osteopathic medicine never fully assimilated into the teaching and practice of conventional medicine, its adoption of most of conventional medicine’s curriculum and practice led to similar cultural practices.To demonstrate osteopathic medicine’s professionalization and shift to a masculine identity, I examine changes in the curriculum from the 1890s to the 1940s which show its increasing alignment with conventional medical schools’ curriculum. Through the examination of yearbooks, course catalogs, student and alumni publications and student newspapers, I analyze social and professional activities, and trends which signify ways in which men were privileged over women, and ways in which traditional gender norms manifested at osteopathic schools. In chapter two I examine the establishment of osteopathic schools and the distinct culture which allowed women to enroll in large numbers. In chapter three I analyze changes to the curriculum and schools’ social climate to explain the rise of collegiate culture and traditional norms that accompanied it. In chapter four, I examine traditional gender roles which manifested primarily through a more academically-rigorous and medicalized culture that conceptualized men as future doctors while marginalizing women as supportive figures. The few women who enrolled in osteopathic schools in the 1930s and 1940s were generally seen as anomalies in a male career field. Given these changes in academics and campus environments, osteopathic medical schools were culturally similar to conventional medical schools, which were already elite, male institut ons. By 1950, osteopathic medical schools had very few female students.

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