Catharine Macfarlane

Catharine Macfarlane

Catharine Macfarlane (* 1877 in Philadelphia ; † 1969 ) was an American physician. She was a pioneer in the diagnosis and treatment of uterine cancer .

Macfarlane studied from the age of 16 first biology at the University of Pennsylvania and then medicine at the Women's Medical College of Pennsylvania with an MD in 1900. She then went to Johns Hopkins University and spent time studying in Europe. She was an instructor from 1898, became a professor in 1922 and (at the time of her regular retirement ) in 1942 research professor for gynecology and obstetrics at the Women's Medical College of Pennsylvania, which she remained until her death. In 1938 she founded the first screening program for uterine cancer in Philadelphia, which was also one of the first in the United States. She also advocated regular cancer screening for women early on.

She had a private practice and performed operations well into old age.

She publicly advocated women's rights and women's right to birth control and appeared with Margaret Sanger at the first Pennsylvania State Conference on Birth Control in 1922 .

In 1951 he received the Lasker ~ DeBakey Clinical Medical Research Award .

She was the first female Fellow of the College of Physicians in Philadelphia and President of the Obstetrical Society of Philadelphia (1943). In 1936 she was elected to the head of the American Medical Women's Association.

Her nickname was Dr. Kitty Mac . She was considered a woman of penetrating intellect, extraordinarily self-confident and conscientious, and not holding back with her opinion. She put the decision to study medicine back to the influence of her mother, whose only child she was and with whom she lived until she died in 1957 at the age of 101.

Web links

• Biography, NIH