Maybe if I Hurry

Tackling college, medical school and training during the Great Depression wasn't an easy chore for anyone, especially a young woman from a tiny Wisconsin town. But Pearl Zink, M.D., a 1937 graduate of Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, isn't just any woman. Zink, Vanderbilt's first woman house officer from 1937-1939, had a 66-year career in medicine, becoming a pioneer in the diagnosis and treatment of allergic diseases, in the care of patients in long-term care facilities and in bringing hospice to the terminally ill. She chose allergies because every fall, living on a farm, she battled them herself. Retired since 2003, Zink isn't one to just sit around. At age 90, she decided to write her recollections of being a woman pioneer in the field of medicine. With Zink's permission, excerpts from her memoir are excerpted in this issue of Vanderbilt Medicine. continued..