In Store Event with Dr. Anne Walling

In telling the history of women in medicine, the pioneers (especially the turbulent ones) are rightly remembered and celebrated in books, articles, memorials, awards, names of buildings, and organizations - even in stone statues and memorials. In contrast, the generation who began the transition from minority status to the current numerical equity are seldom memorialized, yet without the efforts of these few determined women in what was unambiguously a male profession, the achievements of these pioneers could easily have withered.

This book is written to celebrate this unique generation of women who entered medicine between the Second World War and the early 1970s - determined women who just wanted to be doctors but ended up fundamentally changing the profession. Utilizing oral histories from 37 women who became physicians between 1948 and 1975, these women tell their stories in their own words and provide a valid picture of their experiences throughout their careers that has much resonance for those entering or practicing medicine today.

Women in Medicine: Stories from the Girls in White will be of interest to all health professionals or those considering entering health professions, particularly women, and their advisers and supporters, to medical educators, and to medical historians seeking to understand the progress of women in medicine and other professions since the end of WWII.

Dr. Walling is a 1971 graduate of the University of St. Andrews School of Medicine in Scotland. Following rotating internships in Dundee Teaching Hospitals and specialist training in London, she joined the University of Kansas School of Medicine in 1981. A family physician with special interest in care of the elderly, she taught Kansas medical students and assisted faculty with career development for over 30 years.

Dr. Walling has received major teaching awards at the departmental, school and university level. She has presented regularly at national conferences and served as a reviewer for several journals and federal agencies. She has been an associate editor for the journal American Family Physician since 1989. Dr. Walling has published 146 peer-reviewed articles, about 25 book chapters, and several clinical monographs as well as authoring major grants for the Medical School totaling about $25m. Her book, Academic Promotion for Clinicians was published in 2018 with a second edition in 2024. Since “retiring” in 2017, Dr. Walling has continued coaching faculty members and her research projects concerning faculty careers in academic medicine, and issues for senior women physicians. Her new book Women in Medicine: Stories from the Girls in White utilizes oral histories from women physicians who graduated prior to 1975 to provide a vivid and valid picture of entering a male profession and living as a female physician through the turbulent changes in medicine and society of the last 50+ years.

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