The audience asked Dr. Ruth Lawrence and Dr. Wende Logan-Young a number of questions in the dialogue portion of the March 29 Herstory lecture sponsored by the Greater Rochester Association for Women Attorneys. Pre-med students in the audience (from William Smith College ) specifically sought advice for getting into medical school.

“There is an expectation that you will have some type of work experience related to medicine,” noted Dr. Logan-Young. “Whether it is through volunteering or paid work experience, it is important to have something to talk about in this regard. Interpersonal skills are important, so you need to demonstrate that you are good at interacting with people.”

Herstory Program

Monroe County Family Court Judge Marilyn O'Connor opened the program by noting that the role of women in history has frequently been overlooked or understated.

“If you ever get a chance to go to the induction ceremony at the Women's Hall of Fame, I think you'll find it fascinating,” she stated. “The program is usually long, but the speakers are mesmerizing and you won't want to miss a single word.”

Having attended several Hall of Fame programs, Judge O'Connor suggested that GRAWA host a “her” story lecture series to spotlight some of the local women who have contributed significantly to the region's growth and propserity, often with national or international impact. The March 29th program at St. John Fisher College concluded the third year of GRAWA's Herstory initiative.

Audrey Peartree, immediate past president of GRAWA, introduced Dr. Lawrence and Patricia Gibbons introduced Dr. Logan-Young. Each doctor shared her story before the session was opened to questions from the audience.

Dr. Ruth Lawrence

Born in 1924, Dr. Ruth Lawrence was only five years old when the stock market crash of 1929 changed lives across America.

“There was no welfare system, and banks did not insure deposits, leaving most families in financial crisis,” said Dr. Lawrence. “There were many suicides among the wealthy, while others did whatever it took to get by.”

Her family struggled to make ends meet, and although they lost everything -- the car, the house -- they persevered.

“My mother always emphasized education. Finishing high school at 16, I was offered a scholarship to Radcliff,” Dr. Lawrence explained. “But since the college wasn't willing to pay room and board, I couldn't afford to go there. Instead, I enrolled at Antioch , which had one of the best work-study programs available.”

Although Dr. Lawrence began college as a physics major, her summer work experience and network of bosses and colleagues helped shape her path, leading her to apply to medical school.

Accepted at the University of Rochester School of Medicine, Dr. Lawrence began her medical studies in the fall of 1945 -- meeting her future husband in one of her classes. Married in July 1950 before her husband went off to the Korean War, Dr. Lawrence fulfilled her residency requirement at Yale New Haven Hospital where she studied with an innovative doctor who was focused on “childbirth without fear.” It was during this residency that she began studying lactation. At the same time, her husband was in Korea gaining experience in emergency care.

“He worked in a MASH unit and what you have seen on television is fairly close to being true,” she explained. “It was during the war that the concept of triage became standard practice and later revolutionized emergency care in civilian life.”

Dr. Lawrence reminded her audience that in the 1950s, people rushed to the emergency room for all sorts of medical questions. The first telephone hot line arose in response to emergency rooms attempting to deal with every possible poison control question and Rochester had one of the first Poison Control Centers, which she headed in the late 1950s.

Raising a family of nine children, there's no doubt that her life was hectic, and the balancing act sometimes humorous. However, Dr. Lawrence expressed no regret about being “on call” for 48 years.

Dr. Wende Logan-Young

“Balancing a career and children is a challenge to any woman,” Dr. Logan-Young began. “One of the things you sacrifice is culture as your life is wholly focused on work and family for a number of years.”

Raising four children of her own, Dr. Logan-Young was the oldest of 10 children growing up, and often accompanied her physician father on house-calls when she was a child. Born in 1935, she saw that medical care involved a lot of hand-holding.

“Before antibiotics were discovered, it sometimes took a long time for people to recover from what we now see as simple maladies,” she noted. “And many people couldn't pay for medical care with cash, so my father accepted apples or other barter items while he was building up his practice in the 1930s.”

Attending the University at Buffalo School of Medicine, Dr. Logan-Young was one of only a handful of women in her class. Now, most medical schools have approximately 50% women.

Although she clearly enjoyed her medical education, it was her residency in radiology that sparked new enthusiasm. “Radiology was like playing chess, figuring out what to do next,” she said.

Although there was no special equipment for mammography in the late 1960s, Dr. Logan-Young began to focus her research in that field, ultimately leaving her position on the University of Rochester faculty to open her own breast clinic in 1976. The Elizabeth Wende Breast Clinic now sees some 80,000 patients each year.

“Clinical exams in combination with mammography help to ensure early detection of breast cancer. There is no single test that can diagnose breast cancer 100%,” she noted. “But with advances in technology and public awareness, we've made great strides in finding and treating it early.”

In addition to improved diagnostics, Dr. Logan-Young also credited new chemical treatments and more sophisticated radiation therapy with more positive prognosis for breast cancer patients.