The Difficult Path to a Free Choice of Profession – Indomitable Women Following in the Footsteps of Hippocrates
The Difficult Path to a Free Choice of Profession – Indomitable Women Following in the Footsteps of Hippocrates

Summary/Abstract: The topic of women represents a complex of problems concerning the position of women in families and society. The fight of women for the right to work in medicine is an excellent example of the societal conditions that slowed the social mobility of women and their access to professions which were associated with high social prestige. It was as late as 1895 that legislation was adopted in the Kingdom of Hungary that allowed women to study at faculties of medicine. Yet, institutions still retained their reserved attitude towards the recruitment of women. Mária Bellová (1911) was the first Slovakian female physician to graduate in medicine, more female physicians only slowly arrived. There was only a steeper increase in their numbers in the second half of the 20th century; however, several of them made significant contributions to the organisation of the health care system in Slovakia and abroad. This paper aims to present an interdisciplinary view of this topic, focusing on the conditions that led to the recognition of women in the medical profession from an international and historical perspective, from a Euro-Atlantic social context.

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