In their efforts to utilize their medical skills and training in the service of their country, women physicians fought not one but two male-dominated professional hierarchies: the medical and the military establishments. In the process, they also contended with powerful social pressures and constraints. Throughout Women Doctors in War, authors Judith Bellafaire and Mercedes Graf focus on the medical careers, aspirations, and struggles of individual women, using personal stories to illustrate the unique professional and personal challenges female military physicians have faced. Military and medical historians and scholars in women's studies will discover a wealth of new information in this book.

Introduction -- Hen medics: women physicians in the Civil War and the Spanish-American War -- Necessity's handmaidens: the Army's women contract surgeons of World War I -- Finding a place in the sun: women Army doctors in World War II -- Join the Navy and see the world: women Navy doctors in World War II -- Out of place: women military doctors in Cold War America -- On the edge of equality: contemporary women military physicians -- Epilogue.