Migrant medical women: a case study of British medical graduates in twentieth-century Australia

The lives of medical women—with a few notable exceptions—remain marginal in the growing body of literature on the twentieth-century migration of medical practitioners. This article examines the professional experiences and outcomes of a group of women who trained as medical graduates in Britain and migrated to Australia—both temporarily, but often permanently. In exploring the professional lives of these women, this article extends histories of migrant women in Australia to include middle-class, professionally qualified British women. The collective biography of this group of women reveals the broader socio-medical contexts by which they were shaped, in which they participated, and helped shape.