Doctoring Empire: American Women Physicians and the Politics of Professional Identity in Iran, 1888–1971

Abstract: This article explores the careers and experiences of women physicians who participated in the American Presbyterian Board of Foreign Missions' (BFM) medical Mission to Iran between 1888 and 1971. Drawing on medical reports and personal letters, this article considers American women physicians' efforts to use mission medicine to develop medical skills and surgical expertise. I argue that women physicians navigated gender and professional politics to establish themselves as medical professionals who were indispensable to the imperial project. In doing so, they established new avenues of medical practice, and they publicized their medical pursuits within the metropole. This article provides insight into the gendered dynamics of career mobility for American women who engaged with medicine in imperial locales.