Surgical Nuggets

Surgical Nuggets
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SURGICAL NUGGETS is a public audio library for medical students and surgical trainees.

Episodes

  1. Women Who Cut. Episode 11: The First Who Was Allowed.

    Apr 2

    Women Who Cut. Episode 11: The First Who Was Allowed.

    Surgical Nuggets Presents: WOMEN WHO CUT. Episode 11: The First Who Was Allowed. Episode 11 tells the story of Ogino Ginko (1851–1913), the first woman licensed to practise Western medicine in Japan. The episode opens with the catalysing event: at sixteen, Ginko was infected with gonorrhoea by her new husband, treated by male doctors who regarded her with contempt, and resolved in that hospital bed to become a physician so other women would not suffer the same indignity. What followed was eighteen years of systematic exclusion and equally systematic refusal to accept it. She entered the Tokyo Women’s Normal School in 1873, gained access to the male-only Kojuin Hospital medical school through the intervention of Ishiguro Tadanori, president of the Japanese Red Cross and graduated around 1882. But graduation did not bring licensure: women had been excluded from the officially recognised schools that licensed upon graduation, leaving the national examination as the only route, and she was denied the right to sit it twice. She fought for two years, citing a Nara-period imperial law providing for female doctors as legal precedent, and framing her case not as a rights claim but as a public health necessity, women patients needed female doctors. The Sanitary Bureau relented. In 1885 she sat and passed both parts of the national licensing examination and opened the Ogino Hospital in Tokyo, specialising in obstetrics and gynaecology. The episode closes with the 2018 revelation that Tokyo Medical University had been systematically downgrading female applicants’ scores, the same wall, a different century and a reflection on the structural genius of Ginko’s argument: that she won not by demanding equality, but by making the case that women’s health required her. Disclaimer: Women Who Cut is a Surgical Nuggets Production. Our presenting voices are fictional characters. Historical content is researched and fact-checked. REFERENCES: Misaki, Yuko (2015). History of first female doctors in Japan. Nihon Ishigaku Zasshi. 61(2):145–62 Nakamura, Ellen — ‘Ogino Ginko’s Vision’ · University of Hawaii [essay/article] Hektoen International — Ogino Ginko profile Surgical Nuggets is written and produced by practising surgeons. Content is for educational and entertainment purposes only.

    8 min
  2. Women Who Cut. Episode 10: The First Fellow.

    Mar 29

    Women Who Cut. Episode 10: The First Fellow.

    Surgical Nuggets Presents: WOMEN WHO CUT. Episode 10: The First Fellow. The first female Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland. The first female Fellow of any surgical Royal College in Britain and Ireland.  Trinity College turned her away. The odds were stacked against her from the start. She walked into the RCSI in 1887 as the only woman in her class — and left having won medals, earned her fellowship, and changed what was possible. She championed working class women’s access to healthcare, pushed the BMA to open its membership to women, and mentored the next generation of female medical students throughout her career. Gifted academically and clinically, she campaigned with quiet insistence for women’s progress in professional and public life. Disclaimer: Women Who Cut is a Surgical Nuggets Production. Our presenting voices are fictional characters. Historical content is researched and fact-checked. KEY REFERENCES Kelly, L. (2012) Irish Women in Medicine, c.1880s–1920s: Origins, Education and Careers. Manchester: Manchester University Press.The Lancet (1944) ‘Obituary: Emily Winifred Dickson’, The Lancet, 243(6291), p. 326.Moody, T.W. and McGuire, J.I. (eds) (2009) Dictionary of Irish Biography. Cambridge: Royal Irish Academy/Cambridge University Press. [Entry: Dickson, (Emily) Winifred.]RCSI Digital Heritage Collections (2012) Emily Winifred Dickson Papers. Dublin: Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland. Available at: rcsi.access.preservica.com [Donated 2012.] Surgical Nuggets is written and produced by practising surgeons. Content is for educational and entertainment purposes only.

    8 min
  3. Women Who Cut. Episode 09: The Woman Who Did Not Need Permission.

    Mar 20

    Women Who Cut. Episode 09: The Woman Who Did Not Need Permission.

    Surgical Nuggets Presents: WOMEN WHO CUT. Episode 09: The Woman Who Did Not Need Permission. In 1622, in Üsküdar, a woman named Küpeli Saliha Hatun walked into a Sharia court, registered as a surgeon, and began taking patients. She did not hide. She did not disguise herself. She did not petition anybody for permission. She had trained under her husband. He had died. She was the surgeon now. Disclaimer: Women Who Cut is a Surgical Nuggets Production. Our presenting voices are fictional characters. Historical content is researched and fact-checked. KEY REFERENCES Demirsoy N, Sayligil O, Topal M, Ozden H (2019). A Female Surgeon in the 17th Century: Kupeli Saliha Hatun. Konuralp Medical Journal. 11:468-74Akkaya M (2014). A Surgeon Family in Ottoman Üsküdar. History Studies International Journal of History. 6:1–10Degerli et al. (2022). Surgeons, Hernia Surgery and Informed Consent in 17th Century Ottoman Istanbul. World Journal of Surgery.Sultan Bayezid II Health Museum, Edirne. Surgical Nuggets is written and produced by practising surgeons. Content is for educational and entertainment purposes only.

    12 min
  4. Women Who Cut. Episode 08: The Woman Who Did Not Cut.

    Mar 19

    Women Who Cut. Episode 08: The Woman Who Did Not Cut.

    Surgical Nuggets Presents: WOMEN WHO CUT. Episode 09: The Woman Who Did Not Need Permission. Helen Taussig invented paediatric cardiology after Harvard told her she could attend lectures but wouldn’t be given a degree. She identified the cause of blue baby syndrome, designed the surgical fix, and had to hand it to a male surgeon to perform because she wasn’t permitted to operate herself. The Blalock-Taussig shunt went on to become the foundation of paediatric cardiac surgery. Then, aged sixty-four, she travelled to Europe, investigated thalidomide, testified before Congress, and helped keep it off the American market. She died in 1986, aged eighty-seven. She never got to put her name on the operation she designed, it’s right there in the operation title at last.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​ Disclaimer: Women Who Cut is a Surgical Nuggets Production. Our presenting voices are fictional characters. Historical content is researched and fact-checked. References: McNamara, D.G., Manning, J.A., Engle, M.A., Whittemore, R., Neill, C.A. & Ferencz, C. — ‘Helen Brooke Taussig: 1898 to 1986.’ Journal of the American College of Cardiology, 10(3): 662–671 (1987) Neill, C.A. — ‘Helen Brooke Taussig.’ Journal of Pediatrics, 125: 499–502 (1994) Blalock, A. & Taussig, H.B. — ‘The surgical treatment of malformations of the heart in which there is pulmonary stenosis or pulmonary atresia.’ JAMA, 128: 189–202 (1945) Alan Mason Chesney Medical Archives, Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions — Helen B. Taussig Collection​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​  Surgical Nuggets is written and produced by practising surgeons. Content is for educational and entertainment purposes only.

    19 min
  5. Women Who Cut. Episide 07: Always Raising The Bar.

    Mar 16

    Women Who Cut. Episide 07: Always Raising The Bar.

    Surgical Nuggets Presents: WOMEN WHO CUT. Episode 7: Always Raising The Bar. Kadambini Ganguly was the first woman to graduate from an Indian university, the first Indian woman to qualify in Western medicine, and the first South Asian woman on the British Medical Register, all achieved in colonial Bengal, against a society that called her a whore for graduating. She practised medicine for nearly four decades, spoke from the floor of the Indian National Congress, helped shape child marriage law, and in 1915 forced Calcutta Medical College, the institution that had grudgingly trained her, to finally admit women. On the morning she died in 1923, she performed an operation. She was sixty-two, and she never stopped.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​ Disclaimer: Women Who Cut is a Surgical Nuggets Production. Our presenting voices are fictional characters. Historical content is researched and fact-checked. References: Forbes, G. (1996).Women in Modern India.Borthwick, M. (1984). The Changing Role of Women in Bengal 1849–1905.Indian National Congress historical archives. Bethune College archives, Calcutta. Surgical Nuggets is written and produced by practising surgeons. Content is for educational and entertainment purposes only.

    12 min
  6. Women Who Cut. Episode 06: The Hands That Delivered A Nation

    Mar 15

    Women Who Cut. Episode 06: The Hands That Delivered A Nation

    Surgical Nuggets Presents: WOMEN WHO CUT. Episode 06: The Hands That Delivered A Nation. Lin Qiaozhi was born in 1901 on Gulangyu Island, China, and went on to become the founder of modern Chinese gynaecology and obstetrics. She trained at the Peking Union Medical College, pausing her entrance exam to treat a collapsed candidate, and being admitted partly on that basis. Through war, occupation, and the Cultural Revolution, she kept working: delivering an estimated fifty thousand babies, writing the obstetrics textbook that defined the specialty nationally for decades, and pioneering cervical cancer screening across a population of hundreds of millions. In 1978, she became the first woman elected to the Chinese Academy of Sciences. She was seventy-seven, and still working.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​ Disclaimer: Women Who Cut is a Surgical Nuggets Production. Our presenting voices are fictional characters. Historical content is researched and fact-checked. KEY REFERENCES Bullock, M. (1980). An American Transplant: The Rockefeller Foundation and Peking Union Medical College.Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences archivesBiographical Dictionary of Chinese Women (20th Century) Surgical Nuggets is written and produced by practising surgeons. Content is for educational and entertainment purposes only.

    6 min
  7. Women Who Cut. Episode 05: Seven Women, One Riot.

    Mar 13

    Women Who Cut. Episode 05: Seven Women, One Riot.

    Surgical Nuggets presents: WOMEN WHO CUT. Episode 5: Seven Women, One Riot. Sophia Jex-Blake recruited 6 women via a newspaper advert and stormed Edinburgh Medical School alongside them. When the university threw them out, she built her own school for women and spent a decade fighting the legal system until the law changed. , survived a riot, got expelled then built her own school and changed the law. 147 women qualified because of her. The university that threw her out eventually had to let women in. Sophia ran, so we could walk. Disclaimer: Women Who Cut is a Surgical Nuggets Production. Our presenting voices are fictional characters. Historical content is researched and fact-checked. KEY REFERENCES Todd, M (1918) The Life of Dr Sophia Jex-BlakeUniversity of Edinburgh medical history archivesNational Archives TS 18/98 · Historic Environment Scotland Surgical Nuggets is written and produced by practising surgeons. Content is for educational and entertainment purposes only.

    7 min
  8. Women Who Cut. Episode 04: Buried With Her Medal They Tried To Take Away. .mp3

    Mar 11

    Women Who Cut. Episode 04: Buried With Her Medal They Tried To Take Away. .mp3

    Surgical Nuggets presents: WOMEN WHO CUT. Episode 4: Buried With Her Medal They Wanted Back. Mary Edwards Walker was the first female surgeon in the US Army. She crossed enemy lines during the Civil War to treat wounded civilians, was captured as a spy, and held as a prisoner of war for four months. In 1865, President Andrew Johnson awarded her the Medal of Honor. In 1917, the Army took it back. She refused to return it — and wore it every day until she died. She was buried in a black suit, medal on. It was reinstated fifty-eight years after her death. She remains the only woman in history to receive it.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​ Disclaimer: Women Who Cut is a Surgical Nuggets Production. Our presenting voices are fictional characters. Historical content is researched and fact-checked. References: Kaminski, T (2020). Dr Mary Walker's Civil War.National Park Service biographyCongressional Medal of Honor SocietyUS Army Center of Military History Surgical Nuggets is written and produced by practising surgeons. Content is for educational and entertainment purposes only.

    6 min
  9. Women Who Cut. Episode 03: What Could You Do In 900 Days?

    Mar 10

    Women Who Cut. Episode 03: What Could You Do In 900 Days?

    Surgical Nuggets Presents: WOMEN WHO CUT. Episode 3: What Could You Do In 900 Days? In 1883 Anandi Gopal Joshi sailed from Calcutta to America. Already ill, with no institutional backing, in a country she had never seen, to become the first Indian woman ever to qualify in Western medicine. She was 21 when she graduated. She was dead within a year. This is the story of 900 days and what one woman did with them. Disclaimer: Women Who Cut is a Surgical Nuggets Production. Our presenting voices are fictional characters. Historical content is researched and fact-checked. References: Dall, C.H. — The Life of Dr Anandabai Joshee (1888)Kosambi, M. — Anandibai Joshee: Retrieving a Fragmented Feminist Image (1996)Woman’s Medical College of Pennsylvania archives (now Drexel University College of Medicine)Bharadwaj et al. — Journey across the world to study medicine: The Anandi Joshi story, Journal of Medical Biography (2023)Sattiraju et al. — Trailblazer in Medicine: The Inspirational Journey of Dr. Anandibai Gopalrao Joshee, Cureus (2024) [PMC11426306] Surgical Nuggets is written and produced by practising surgeons. Content is for educational and entertainment purposes only.

    5 min
  10. Women Who Cut. Episode 02: Opening The door

    Mar 9

    Women Who Cut. Episode 02: Opening The door

    Surgical Nuggets presents: WOMEN WHO CUT. Episode 2: Opening The Door. In 1849, Elizabeth Blackwell became the first woman to graduate from medical school in the United States, but the door didn't open easily. In this episode, we explore how she fought her way into a profession that didn't want her, and what her story means for every woman who has picked up a scalpel since. Disclaimer: Women Who Cut is a Surgical Nuggets production. Our presenting voices are fictional characters. Historical content is researched and fact-checked. Key references: Blackwell, E — Pioneer Work in Opening the Medical Profession to Women (1895, autobiography)  Morantz-Sanchez, R — Sympathy and Science: Women Physicians in American Medicine (1985)  Nimura, J — The Doctors Blackwell (2021) Surgical Nuggets is written and produced by practising surgeons. Content is for educational and entertainment purposes only.

    10 min
  11. Women Who Cut. Episode 01: The Surgeon Before Time Allowed.

    Mar 8

    Women Who Cut. Episode 01: The Surgeon Before Time Allowed.

    Surgical Nuggets presents: WOMEN WHO CUT. Episode 1: The Surgeon Before Time Allowed. In 1812, a woman enrolled at Edinburgh Medical School, graduated as a doctor, and joined the British Army, as a man. For fifty years, James Barry was one of the finest military surgeons of the 19th century. Nobody knew. This is her story. Disclaimer: Women Who Cut is a Surgical Nuggets production. Our presenting voices are fictional characters. Historical content is researched and fact-checked. References: Rachel Holmes. The Secret Life of Dr James Barry (2002)du Preez & Dronfield. James Barry: A Woman Ahead of Her Time (2016)National Archives WO 25/3910 & WO 138/1JRCPE 2012 doi: 10.4997/JRCPE.2012.315 Surgical Nuggets is written and produced by practising surgeons. Content is for educational and entertainment purposes only.

    10 min
  • 11 Episodes

About

SURGICAL NUGGETS is a public audio library for medical students and surgical trainees.

Information

  • Creator
    Surgical Nuggets
  • Episodes
    11
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © Surgical Nuggets
  • Show Website
    Surgical Nuggets