Every year on 11 February, the world observes the International Day of Women and Girls in Science, a global initiative established by the United Nations to recognise the essential role women play in scientific advancement. The observance also draws attention to the persistent gender gaps across science, technology, engineering, mathematics, and medicine, spanning education, research opportunities, leadership roles, and recognition.
Despite decades of progress, women continue to be underrepresented in senior scientific positions and are less likely to receive credit for their discoveries. Globally, women make up a minority of researchers, with even fewer occupying decision-making roles in academia, healthcare innovation, and biomedical research. The day therefore serves both as a celebration of achievement and a reminder of the work that remains unfinished.
Each year, the International Day of Women and Girls in Science prompts conversations around access to education, mentorship, equitable funding, and inclusive research environments. Its purpose is not symbolic recognition alone, but systemic change, ensuring that scientific progress reflects the diversity of the populations it is meant to serve.
Medicine offers one of the clearest lenses through which to understand this imbalance. Many of the tools, treatments, and clinical practices used every day in hospitals and clinics were shaped by women whose contributions were undervalued or overlooked in their time. Their work continues to save lives, often without their names being widely remembered.
Against this backdrop, looking at how modern medicine evolved reveals a different story, one written quietly in laboratories, hospital wards, and research institutes across the world.
Modern medicine is built on breakthroughs that often feel routine because of how deeply they are embedded in everyday care. From the medicines prescribed in outpatient clinics to the assessments performed in delivery rooms, these advances reflect decades of scientific work. Yet many of the women behind them remain missing from textbooks, award lists, and popular medical narratives.
Revisiting their stories is not just an act of historical correction. It is a reminder that medical progress has always depended on minds that challenged convention, worked beyond recognition, and shaped healthcare in ways we continue to rely on every day.
For much of the twentieth century, women in science faced structural barriers that extended well beyond the laboratory. Restricted access to higher education, exclusion from leadership roles, limited research funding, and denial of authorship meant that even transformative discoveries were often credited to male colleagues or institutions.
In medicine, this invisibility has lasting consequences. When contributions are overlooked, role models disappear. Generations of students grow up believing that innovation follows a narrow path shaped by a narrow group. Recognising women’s scientific contributions is not only about fairness, but about ensuring that future medical progress benefits from diverse perspectives.
Malaria was once among the deadliest infectious diseases worldwide, particularly affecting low-income and tropical regions. The treatment that transformed its management emerged from an unconventional scientific path.
Tu Youyou (born 1930) is a pharmaceutical chemist trained at Beijing Medical College, now part of Peking University Health Science Center. She spent much of her career at the China Academy of Chinese Medical Sciences, where she worked on integrating traditional medicine with modern pharmacology.
During the 1960s and 1970s, Tu played a central role in identifying artemisinin from Artemisia annua, a plant used in traditional Chinese medicine. By rigorously testing and refining the compound, her work led to therapies that dramatically reduced malaria mortality.
Today, artemisinin-based combination therapies are a cornerstone of global malaria treatment protocols, used daily across endemic regions. Tu Youyou’s work reshaped infectious disease management on a global scale.
Many of the most common bacterial infections seen in clinics, from sore throats to life-threatening sepsis, are caused by streptococci. The way these infections are diagnosed, classified, and treated today depends on a system developed nearly a century ago.
Rebecca Lancefield (1895–1981) was a microbiologist trained at Columbia University, where she spent most of her career at the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research. At a time when bacterial classification was inconsistent and often confusing, Lancefield introduced a systematic method to group streptococcal bacteria based on specific carbohydrate antigens found on their cell walls.
Her work led to the Lancefield grouping system, which remains fundamental to clinical microbiology. Terms such as Group A Streptococcus and Group B Streptococcus are now routine in medical practice, guiding diagnosis, antibiotic selection, and infection control.
This classification has had direct implications for patient care, particularly in neonatal medicine, where Group B Streptococcus screening and prophylaxis have significantly reduced newborn infections. Despite its lasting clinical impact, Lancefield’s contribution is rarely mentioned outside specialist circles.
Every throat swab report, blood culture result, and neonatal infection protocol that references streptococcal groups carries forward the legacy of her work.
Before advances in paediatric cardiology, children born with congenital heart defects faced bleak prognoses. Conditions like cyanotic heart disease were often fatal.
Helen Taussig (1898–1986) trained in medicine at Johns Hopkins University, where she later founded one of the world’s first pediatric cardiology clinics. Despite experiencing progressive hearing loss, she became renowned for her diagnostic skills and clinical insight.
Taussig’s observations of abnormal blood flow patterns in congenital heart defects led to the development of the Blalock–Taussig shunt, a surgical procedure that transformed survival rates for infants with blue baby syndrome.
Her work laid the foundation for modern paediatric cardiology, neonatal cardiac screening, and surgical correction of congenital heart disease.
Infertility was long treated as a private misfortune rather than a medical condition, particularly in low- and middle-income countries. In India, the scientific and clinical shift toward evidence-based infertility care began quietly within hospital laboratories.
Indira Hinduja (born 1946) is an obstetrician and gynaecologist trained at Grant Medical College and Sir J.J. Group of Hospitals, Mumbai, one of India’s leading public medical institutions. Early in her career, she focused on reproductive endocrinology and infertility at a time when assisted reproductive technology was still emerging globally and faced widespread scepticism in India.
Hinduja was part of the team that delivered India’s first scientifically documented in vitro fertilisation (IVF) baby in 1986. While earlier claims of IVF success existed, this case was rigorously documented, clinically validated, and reproducible, helping establish IVF as a legitimate medical treatment rather than an experimental curiosity.
Beyond this milestone, Hinduja’s most significant contribution lay in translating IVF into routine clinical practice. At the time, infertility care in India lacked standardised protocols, trained embryologists, and dedicated laboratory infrastructure. Hinduja worked to integrate assisted reproductive techniques into mainstream obstetrics and gynaecology by developing and refining clinical protocols for ovarian stimulation, egg retrieval, fertilisation, embryo transfer, and patient follow-up.
Working within both public and private healthcare settings, she helped adapt IVF techniques to Indian clinical realities, including high patient volumes, limited resources, and diverse socioeconomic backgrounds. This ensured that assisted reproduction was not confined to elite research centres but could be delivered safely and ethically within hospital systems.
Hinduja also played a role in normalising infertility as a medical condition, encouraging professional discussion around consent, ethics, and patient counselling at a time when fertility treatment carried significant social stigma. Her work helped shift infertility care into the domain of evidence-based medicine, paving the way for the widespread acceptance of assisted reproductive technologies across the country.
Today, IVF clinics and embryology laboratories are an established part of obstetric and gynaecological practice in India. Every standard IVF protocol used today carries forward principles shaped during these early years of clinical innovation.
Some of the most important medical breakthroughs are not dramatic procedures or machines, but medicines taken daily, often without a second thought. Many of these drugs exist because of a fundamental shift in how medicines were designed.
Gertrude B. Elion (1918–1999) was a biochemist and pharmacologist who transformed drug development by pioneering rational drug design, a method that replaced chance discovery with targeted, mechanism-based science. She earned her master’s degree from New York University and spent most of her career at Burroughs Wellcome, now part of GlaxoSmithKline.
Before Elion’s work, many drugs were discovered through trial and error, with limited understanding of how they interacted with disease at a molecular level. This approach often resulted in treatments that were toxic, unpredictable, or only partially effective. Elion challenged this model by focusing on the biochemical differences between healthy human cells and diseased or infected cells.
Working closely with physician-scientist George Hitchings, she studied how cells synthesize DNA and RNA, processes essential for cell division and viral replication. By identifying specific enzymes involved in these pathways, Elion helped design drugs that could selectively block disease-causing cells while sparing normal tissue.
This approach led to the development of 6-mercaptopurine, a drug that dramatically improved survival in childhood leukaemia by slowing the uncontrolled growth of cancer cells. It was one of the earliest examples of targeted chemotherapy and marked a turning point in cancer treatment.
Elion’s work also helped make organ transplantation clinically viable. Before effective immunosuppressive drugs, transplanted organs were usually rejected by the recipient’s immune system. Her role in developing azathioprine allowed doctors to suppress immune rejection safely, transforming transplantation from an experimental procedure into routine clinical practice.
In the field of infectious disease, Elion helped pioneer antiviral therapy, an area once thought nearly impossible to treat without harming human cells. Her contribution to the development of acyclovir, used to treat herpes virus infections, demonstrated that viruses could be targeted selectively. This breakthrough opened the door to modern antiviral medicine and influenced later treatments for HIV, hepatitis, and other viral illnesses.
She also contributed to allopurinol, a drug still widely used to manage gout by reducing uric acid levels. Unlike many earlier treatments, it addressed the biochemical cause of the disease rather than just its symptoms.
Remarkably, Elion achieved these advances without a doctoral degree, navigating financial constraints and gender bias that limited her academic opportunities. Instead, she built her career through laboratory research, mentorship, and sustained scientific output, challenging traditional notions of who could lead medical innovation.
Today, cancer chemotherapy protocols, transplant medicine, antiviral treatments, and chronic disease management all rely on drugs developed using principles Elion helped establish. Her contribution was not a single medication, but a new way of thinking about how medicines are designed, tested, and used.
Modern medicine is not only about curing disease, but also about caring for patients when cure is no longer possible. The way doctors communicate with terminally ill patients, manage end-of-life care, and understand grief has been fundamentally shaped by one woman’s work.
Elisabeth Kübler-Ross (1926–2004) was a Swiss-American psychiatrist trained at the University of Zurich, who later worked extensively in hospitals and teaching institutions in the United States. At a time when death was largely avoided as a subject in medical training, Kübler-Ross brought the experiences of dying patients into clinical focus.
Through systematic interviews with terminally ill patients, she identified common emotional responses to dying, later described as the five stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. While not intended as a rigid framework, this model helped clinicians better understand patient behaviour and emotional needs during serious illness.
Her work transformed palliative care, encouraging physicians to prioritise communication, dignity, and psychological support alongside physical treatment. Today, end-of-life discussions, hospice care, and patient-centred decision-making are integral parts of medical practice, influenced by principles Kübler-Ross helped introduce.
Although widely cited in psychology, her impact on clinical medicine and medical education is often underappreciated. Every goals-of-care discussion, advance directive conversation, and hospice referral reflects a shift in medicine that her work helped catalyse.
Modern medicine depends on blood transfusions at almost every level of care, from trauma and major surgery to cancer treatment and obstetrics. Yet for much of the early twentieth century, transfusions were risky, inconsistently performed, and limited by poor storage and transport systems.
Janet Vaughan (1899–1993) was a British haematologist whose work transformed blood transfusion from an improvised procedure into a reliable, large-scale medical service. She trained at Somerville College, Oxford, and later worked at institutions including the Royal Postgraduate Medical School in London, focusing on blood disorders and transfusion science.
During the Second World War, Vaughan played a crucial role in organising Britain’s blood transfusion services. At a time when wounded soldiers required immediate access to blood, she helped establish systems for systematic donor recruitment, safe blood storage, and coordinated distribution. This ensured that blood could be collected in advance, preserved under controlled conditions, and transported efficiently to hospitals and field units.
Beyond logistics, Vaughan worked on improving blood storage methods, helping define how long blood could be safely preserved and under what conditions. She also promoted standardised transfusion protocols, reducing complications caused by inconsistent handling, poor matching, and unsafe administration practices.
After the war, these systems were adapted for civilian healthcare. Vaughan’s academic work and teaching helped establish transfusion medicine and hematology as formal medical disciplines, grounded in evidence rather than emergency improvisation.
Today, every blood bank, cross-matching protocol, and emergency transfusion service operates on principles shaped by this early work. Vaughan’s contribution was not a single discovery, but the creation of the infrastructure that makes modern transfusion medicine possible.
Modern diagnostic imaging and radiation therapy depend on one essential principle: radiation must be used precisely, predictably, and safely. This was not always the case.
Edith Quimby (1891–1982) was a medical physicist whose work transformed radiation in medicine from a risky, poorly understood tool into a controlled and measurable clinical practice. Trained in physics, Quimby spent much of her career working at Columbia University and Memorial Hospital in New York (now Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center), collaborating closely with radiologists and oncologists.
In the early twentieth century, X-rays and radium were already being used to diagnose disease and treat cancer, but clinicians had little ability to measure how much radiation patients or healthcare workers were exposed to. Overexposure was common, leading to burns, tissue damage, and long-term health risks.
Quimby addressed this problem by developing methods to quantify radiation dose accurately. Her work made it possible to calculate how much radiation was delivered during diagnostic imaging or cancer treatment, allowing clinicians to balance effectiveness with safety. This was a fundamental shift from trial-and-error exposure to evidence-based dosing.
She also studied the biological effects of radiation on human tissue, helping define safe exposure limits for both patients and medical staff. These findings informed early radiation protection guidelines and reduced occupational hazards for radiologists, technicians, and nurses.
In cancer care, Quimby played a key role in standardising radiation therapy planning. By helping clinicians calculate precise doses needed to treat tumours while sparing surrounding healthy tissue, she laid the groundwork for modern radiation oncology. Today’s carefully planned radiotherapy protocols trace their origins to this early work in dosimetry and dose control.
Beyond her scientific contributions, Quimby helped establish medical physics as a recognised clinical discipline. She trained professionals who bridged physics and medicine, a role that is now indispensable in radiology, nuclear medicine, and radiation oncology departments worldwide.
Every chest X-ray, CT scan, PET scan, and radiation therapy session relies on safety standards and dose calculations shaped by the principles Quimby helped introduce. Her contribution was not a single invention, but the framework that made diagnostic and therapeutic radiation safe enough to become routine in everyday medical care.
The stories of these women highlight a pattern that continues into the present. Gender gaps persist in research funding, authorship, leadership roles, and academic advancement. Recognition matters because it shapes aspiration. When women’s scientific contributions are visible, medicine benefits from broader perspectives, stronger research questions, and more inclusive patient care. Acknowledging these contributions is not about rewriting history, but about completing it.
The International Day of Women and Girls in Science is not merely a date on the calendar. It is a reminder that medical progress depends on whose voices are heard and whose work is remembered. Every life saved carries the legacy of women whose discoveries changed medicine quietly and permanently. Honouring them is not just a tribute. It is a responsibility.