What
is perhaps most impressive about Jean Silver-Isenstadt, MA, MD, PhD, ’02,
is not her vast array of degrees or the fact that she has written and published
a book. What is most impressive about Silver-Isenstadt is her humility, her
kindness, and her thoughtfulness.Born in 1968 in Columbia, Md., Silver-Isenstadt is the daughter of physicians. The fact that she has an MD after her name, as well, surprises no one who knows her. It is, however, perhaps rather surprising that she also has two MAs and a PhD. “I was pre-med in college—unequivocally pre-med,” she says. “I was going to be a fourth generation physician. My senior thesis was on the influence of psychiatric training in parenting. I had letters of recommendation for medical school all ready to go. But when it came time to take the MCATs, I balked. Was I being too ‘conveyor belt’ in my thinking? Is this what I really want?” she remembers asking herself.
Wesleyan University in Middletown, Ct., encourages pre-med students to take a year off before starting medical school. “My mentor Annie (Pulitzer Prize winner Annie Dillard) suggested that I do more writing,” she says. That encouragement led Silver-Isenstadt to Johns Hopkins to pursue an intensive one-year master’s program in writing. But her writing didn’t stray far from her innate interest in medicine: her thesis was entitled Wars On and With Disease: A Look at the Marketing of Condoms and at Forms of Biological Warfare.
When the year was up and she still felt conflicted about medical school, Silver-Isenstadt entered a PhD program at the University of Pennsylvania to learn about the history of medicine and combine her love of writing with her interest in healing. “I thought a PhD program might answer my interests without my having to endure the hell of medical school,” she says. “I was not particularly drawn to the procedures of medicine. I was interested in people, in the intimacy of relationships. There is not a lot of phoniness in interacting with patients. They are honest,” she says, “because they are afraid.”
In the six years it took to complete her PhD, Silver-Isenstadt and her pediatrician husband Ari decided to start a family. She had her first child while writing her dissertation. Even so, “writing the dissertation was a very solitary time for me,” she says. “I missed interacting with people, and I was getting lonely.”
She had taken the MCAT exam just before she began writing her dissertation—just in case!—
and had applied to medical school with deferment. When her dissertation on the life and work of Mary Gove and Thomas Low Nichols and the impact they had on health reform in 19th-century America was finished, Silver-Isenstadt was finally ready to become a physician.
The fact that Silver-Isenstadt has a medical degree from Maryland is a testament to the progressiveness of the medical school. Silver-Isenstadt wanted flexibility at medical school so she could spend time with her children (another one was planned), and her husband wanted a part-time
residency for the same reason.
“We applied all over the country and in the end turned down highly competitive programs elsewhere because of the lack of flexibility that both Ari and I were offered,” she says. “Carol Carraccio (pediatric residency director) was eager to help Ari do a part-time residency. Jack Gladstein (associate dean for student affairs—see story on page 12) told me that Maryland likes families, and that he wanted to make it easy for me. Our friends at other schools were floored by the support we got at Maryland,” she says.
“We are both examples of how a system can be progressive and change if it wants to,” she continues. “In another stunning example of Maryland’s flexibility, I had a couple of physiology exams to finish during my maternity leave, and I was told to call when I was ready to take them!” she remembers.
Silver-Isenstadt completed her medical degree in five years, taking two years to finish her junior year. It was during this time that Silver-Isenstadt wrote her book Shameless: The Visionary Life of Mary Gove Nichols, using her dissertation as its basis. According to the favorable review in the Chronicle of Higher Education, Shameless is an “engaging new biography of [an] American feminist . . . ‘who opened discussions of the relationship between power and sex that propel us still.’”
“Mary Nichols came very much alive to me as I was writing this book,” Silver-Isenstadt says. “Her voice was so strong, so sharp and modern. Not only were her ideas worthy of recognition, but so was her life. It was very difficult to write about her death, even though I knew it was coming!”
Last spring, Silver-Isenstadt had her third child, published her book, and graduated from medical school. She chose not to match right away so that she can stay at home with her three children. Even she concedes that she has accomplished a lot in a relatively short time. “Yes, I have all these degrees, but I don’t have a work history. I have yet to bring home any bacon. So please, tell everyone to buy my book,” she says with her ready laugh.
Shameless has sold over 1,000 copies and is available at www.amazon.com, www.borders.com and www.bn.com.