- Susan Stark and Jennifer Coon
Women's History Month: Women in Medicine
Updated: Mar 27
For the second week of Women's History Month, we're spotlighting some of medicine's most influential female pioneers! Healthcare is an incredibly broad field, and women around the world have been healing people, aiding in childbirth, and discovering new treatments since the beginning of time.
One innovator, Dr. Helen Taussig, created the entire healthcare specialty of pediatric cardiology. She treated babies with life-threatening heart conditions, including a condition that restricted blood flow to the lungs. After collaborating with a surgeon on her idea for an operation, the Blalock-Thomas-Taussig shunt operation became the standard procedure to solve this problem. A form of Dr. Taussig's surgery is still performed today, and it wouldn't have been possible without people from different disciplines working together.
Some of the most well-known theories and breakthroughs in science have been from teams of people with diverse specialties, and the healthcare field isn’t any different. If you’ve ever wondered what kind of healthcare worker you would be, take this quiz!