A Woman Physician Looks Back

Abstract

An innovative aspect of Nancy McCall’s medical career was her establishment of a joint practice with other women physicians to provide care for women. Though she had had no difficulty in establishing a solo private practice and was busy since the day it opened, McCall was aware that, more typically, young women experience unusual difficulty in establishing medical practices on their own. Many persons, women included, have more confidence in male physicians. Though her career was thriving, she determined to set up a joint women physicians practice to assist young women in those lean and discouraging years after medical school by providing a supportive milieu in which they could gain experience and self-confidence and build records of competence that would enable them to move on in their careers in whatever way they chose. Her husband, who could “sell a snowball to an Eskimo,” helped to recruit young women to the novel practice. Circumstances beyond her control, primarily the skyrocketing of costs for malpractice insurance, which unfortunately coincided with the outset of her venture, limited the size of the group practice. However, turnover was built into the plan, so over the years a large number of young women have benefited.