gms | German Medical Science

72. Jahrestagung der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Neurochirurgie (DGNC)
Joint Meeting mit der Polnischen Gesellschaft für Neurochirurgie

Deutsche Gesellschaft für Neurochirurgie (DGNC) e. V.

06.06. - 09.06.2021

The first female neurosurgeons in Germany

Die ersten Neurochirurginnen in Deutschland

Meeting Abstract

Suche in Medline nach

  • presenting/speaker Aruni Velalakan - RKH Kliniken Ludwigsburg, Neurochirurgie, Ludwigsburg, Deutschland
  • Ulrike Eisenberg - Kommission Geschichte der Neurochirurgie, Jena, Deutschland
  • Jutta Krüger - Kommission Geschichte der Neurochirurgie, Jena, Deutschland

Deutsche Gesellschaft für Neurochirurgie. 72. Jahrestagung der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Neurochirurgie (DGNC), Joint Meeting mit der Polnischen Gesellschaft für Neurochirurgie. sine loco [digital], 06.-09.06.2021. Düsseldorf: German Medical Science GMS Publishing House; 2021. DocV197

doi: 10.3205/21dgnc192, urn:nbn:de:0183-21dgnc1927

Veröffentlicht: 4. Juni 2021

© 2021 Velalakan et al.
Dieser Artikel ist ein Open-Access-Artikel und steht unter den Lizenzbedingungen der Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License (Namensnennung). Lizenz-Angaben siehe http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.


Gliederung

Text

Objective: Women in leading positions in neurosurgery are still underrepresented. In 2016, only 14 % of the neurosurgery departments in German hospitals listed woman in leading positions (chief and senior physicians). In our project we present the lives of the first female neurosurgeons in Germany who achieved their specialization in a time when neurosurgery as a discipline was still new in Germany. This project is embedded in current international research on the history of women in neurosurgery. The beginning of neurosurgery in Germany was shaped by Fedor Krause, Otfrid Foerster und Wilhelm Tönnis, among others. But who were the first female neurosurgeons in Germany?

Methods: Personal interviews, telephone interviews and literature research.

Results: Alice Rosenstein (1898-1991) was the first woman who worked as a female neurosurgeon in Germany in the 1920s when German neurosurgery was in its infancy. She was a student of Otfrid Foerster and in 1930, opened the new operation theatre in Karl Kleist’s “Nervenklinik” in Frankfurt. In 1933, she was expelled from Germany and escaped to the US. Thirty-five years after Alice Rosenstein had left Germany, the first woman became a specialist of neurosurgery in Germany: In 1968, Gisela Liermann (now Ludwig) finished her training in neurosurgery in Berlin-Buch (GDR) under Friedrich Weickmann. Her colleague Immetraut Ferchland (now Kalweit) succeeded in 1976, whereas the first certified West German female neurosurgeon was Ruth Ilse Kahl in 1969. Margareta Klinger and Jutta Krüger were the first women in (West) Germany who achieved the habilitation in neurosurgery in 1980. Gabriele Schackert, neurosurgeon since 1984, is the first female neurosurgeon who in 1993 became a chair holder in a university hospital.

Conclusion: All these women faced similar struggles even though their career paths have been different. Despite the difficulties at that time, they achieved their goals. Young female neurosurgeons can still take them as role models because only few of them are represented in leading positions in neurosurgery though women account for more than half of all medical students.