Listening to Women Patients: Historical Perspectives on Women's Health

Celebrate National Women's Health Week with author Dr. April Patrick who will discuss the history of women's health and how it connects with women's healthcare today. Dr. Patrick will share several nineteenth-century texts about childbirth, focusing on moments when the concerns of women patients are dismissed and how women have used their collective voices to advocate for themselves. Though the texts were written over a century ago, they offer insight into current issues around women's health in America.

These stories come from Dr. April Patrick's new book, Women's Heath in Britain and America: Texts and Contexts, which includes over a hundred historical texts that address pregnancy and childbirth, contraception and abortion, and breast and gynecological cancers. Dr. Patrick is an Associate Professor and University Director of Honors at Fairleigh Dickinson University, where she teaches courses on narrative medicine and literature.