The Doctors Blackwell by Janice Nimura

I got this biography as a present from my MIL, which is meaningful in that she is a physician and so am I. She hasn't talked much about what it was like for her to be one of only three women in her medical school class, but reading this book made me think about all the people who went before me, making it a bit easier. This tells the tale of two sisters who wanted to be doctors, Elizabeth was largely welcomed into her class (where she had to be unanimously voted in by all her fellow classmates prior to admission--that was the first miracle. The second was that they were impressed by her rather than jealous). She was only allowed to work with women, and to focus mostly on obstetrics and gynecology, but that suited her fine. She encountered numerous challenges, but she was creative about overcoming them, she had tremendous family support, and she and her sister were mentors and inspirations for women to come after them.