“I don’t know if I want anyone to know that. What woman tells her right age?”
With a little prodding, Dr. Marie Jeanne Ferrari, BA’55, MD’59, reluctantly admits to being 101 years old.
Among the oldest living alumni of the Schulich School of Medicine & Dentistry as well as Western, Ferrari graduated 65 years ago, one of only a handful of women in the Medicine Class of 1959.
“I applied and was accepted at the time when there was a limit on the number of women in the class,” said Ferrari. “They allowed 60 students in every year, and only five could be women.”
While most Canadian medical school classes have been comprised of more female students than males for several decades now – a far cry from Ferrari’s experience – Schulich Medicine & Dentistry’s medical historian points out the successes were slow in coming.
“It’s been a long road to reach these milestones and to be able to applaud the robust number of women medical students and practicing physicians in Canada,” said Shelley McKellar, PhD, Hannah Chair in the History of Medicine. “International Women’s Day is the perfect occasion to recognize the achievements of women who, past and present, have contributed to increased opportunities and successes for all women.”
Gender parity has still not been reached among the number of physicians working in Canada, McKellar said, but added it’s “only a matter of time” until that happens.
The privilege of medical school
Ferrari’s journey began in Tecumseh, Ont., where she was born in September 1922.
“A little town near Windsor, you may or may not have heard of it,” she said.
It wasn’t long before the desire to become a doctor took hold of her. Inspired by the biography of brothers Charles and William Mayo, part of the group that founded the world-famous Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, Ferrari applied to the Faculty of Medicine at Western.
“They were brave and they were daring and they overcame many obstacles,” Ferrari said of the Mayo brothers.
Unsuccessful in her first application to Western, she turned to pharmacy, at the advice of her father, who said being a pharmacist was the next best thing to being a doctor.
“I completed my training in pharmacy, and then worked for a couple of years. But, the desire to be a doctor still nagged me. So, I reapplied,” she said. “At that point, I had two degrees, a BA and my pharmacy degree. I think maybe that’s how I got in, because I was older than the other students by that point.”
It was an era of exciting discoveries at the medical school when Ferrari came to the Ottaway Ave. (South Street) location. A graduate of Western’s medical program in 1947, Carol Whitlow Buck had recently received her PhD in the department of clinical preventative medicine, and – most importantly for women – would earn the position of head of the department of community medicine in 1967. The world’s first delivery of cancer radiation therapy to patients using a “cobalt bomb” had been done in 1951. And Dr. Charles Drake pioneered a surgical procedure to correct cerebral aneurysms in 1958.
Ferrari became a doctor in the face of certain restrictions and hurdles, said McKellar, who leads the History of Medicine program at Schulich Medicine & Dentistry and is also professor in the department of history.
“How daunting it must have been for women to pursue a career in medicine if they numbered only a few, surrounded by male classmates, and taught by male instructors,” she said.
But despite these limitations, Ferrari thoroughly enjoyed her time at medical school.
“It’s difficult to put my finger on exactly what was so great about it,” she said. “First of all, I enjoy learning and I really wanted to be a doctor. I liked my classmates, they were great. Our male counterparts treated us with great respect. I don’t think anybody had any complaints about anybody else. We were there to learn to become good doctors and that was it.”
After graduation, Ferrari did a five-year residency in internal medicine.
‘I saw the world’
Ferrari only spent a short time practicing. She worked for two years at Memorial Hospital for Cancer and Allied Diseases, New York, (now Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center) and two years at Tulane University in New Orleans, before going to the University of Ottawa as an epidemiologist in the department of public health.
“I mean, I saw the world!”
She certainly did. During her residency at Memorial, Ferrari served at a hospital on Turtle Island, off the north shore of Haiti, while the regular physician was on medical leave. On arrival at Port-de-Paix, Ferrari crossed over to the island, “in a sailboat manned by what looked like pirates.” She recalled the straw mats on the floor of the hospital, lack of modern medicines, and poor conditions.
“I remember setting a compound fracture of the tibia, using only morphine as an anaesthetic. The poor man!”
After working for the federal government in immigration medicine, Ferrari retired at age 70. But her desire to learn continued to motivate her. She entered the field of canon law – the laws governing the Catholic Church – an aspect of her faith she still enjoys, and earned her degree. Ever up for a challenge, Ferrari also adopted three children and fostered four others, all as a single mom.
Three of her children still live in the Ottawa area, and she sees them every Sunday for dinner.
“You have to realize, I never got married. I feel it was the grace of God that I was able to adopt those children,” she said.
Yet for all of her adventures, Ferrari is reluctant to see herself as a pioneer.
“I don’t really feel like one. Maybe this surprises you, but it was a great privilege to be in medical school,” she said. “I haven’t had a boring life. It’s been fun. Oh, and I thank God for that. I thank God for that. Yes, indeed.”
Laying the groundwork
Despite Ferrari’s reluctance to view herself as a trailblazer, women in Schulich Medicine & Dentistry’s current medical class pointed out that early female representation, like Ferrari’s, laid the groundwork for them to pursue medicine as a career.
“I am inspired by women like Dr. Marie Ferrari who helped to break new ground for the next generation of women like myself,” said Umaima Abbas, a second-year student at Schulich Medicine & Dentistry’s Windsor Campus and vice-president, Windsor, of the Hippocratic Council.
“Despite being in a class with only five women in the program, her courage and resilience paved the way for women in medicine by reminding us that our identity should never limit our career aspirations,” said Abbas, the first woman in her family to pursue post-secondary and professional education.
Christina Lim, who came from the world of engineering, is also part of a new generation of women who are seeing changes in the medical world.
“Representation is such an important part of empowering youth to pursue careers or academic opportunities, like medicine,” said Lim, a second-year medical student and vice-president, communications, of the Hippocratic Council. “It’s hard to be what you can’t see. Now as a Southeast Asian woman, when I see staff physicians who look like me or come from backgrounds like mine, I can envision myself in their shoes and feel as though I belong.”