'It did not seem like a hospital it seemed like home': Women's experiences as patients at Peterson's Hospital, Ann Arbor, Michigan, 1902-1933.

Abstract

Using quantitative and qualitative analyses of nearly 500 patient records and letters between physicians and patients, this dissertation examines the history of a small private women's hospital in the Midwest from the patients' perspective. Set in the early twentieth century, this study focuses on the intersections of medicine, science, and society during a period of rapid change in each of these sectors. Middle class patients, able to afford private care, began leaving home for the first time for medical care. In order to attract paying patients, physicians focused on the benefits that the modern hospital had to offer---the latest in new medical and surgical technologies. By recreating a domestic ideal outside the home in the hospital setting, physicians were able to attract patients, especially women, to their small private hospitals. At the same time, surgical expertise, already growing in status, was incorporated into the emerging consumerist ethic to make it an attractive and valued commodity. Thus, women who had suffered for years from female maladies were now offered the possibility of a cure through the advances of surgery. These women not only welcomed the possibility of a cure, but many demanded it. The journey of the patient is outlined beginning with the multiple layers of negotiations on becoming a patient, through the daily hospital routine, the process of making a diagnosis, to the surgical and maternity experience. Throughout, the focus remains squarely on the patient side of the patient-physician interaction.