Move over Dr. Quinn, here's a real pioneer

Commentary. By Luther W. Brady Jr., MD, AMNews contributor. Dec. 24/31, 2001.

In her portrait, Katherine Boucot Sturgis, MD (1903-87), projects a serene self-confidence befitting a pioneering medical researcher and the first female president of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia.

In reality, however, the first 40 years of Dr. Sturgis' life were anything but serene.

The daughter of a Jewish businessman, Katherine Rosenbaum was born into a world in which the majority of women did not attend college.

Her humanitarian instincts surfaced early. As a girl in Philadelphia, she joined the Band of Mercy, a humanitarian group that provided water for thirsty horses. At 13, Katherine was determined to become a physician, but the idea of his daughter going to college alarmed her father. During an argument on the subject, he criticized her inability to sew. Two weeks later, Katherine presented him with a dress she had made herself. Impressed by her determination, he relented. Soon Katherine was attending the University of Pennsylvania.

Her next confrontation with parental authority was not resolved so easily. Pressed to give up a beau, Katherine rebelled. Eventually, the young couple eloped, but their private drama became public when a reporter for the Philadelphia Evening Bulletin discovered a record of their marriage license. The resulting headline: "Golden-haired co-ed elopes to Elkton. Heiress faces disinheritance." Katherine and her new husband moved in with his parents and had two children. [...]