Yale Pioneers in ObGyn

Years active at Yale: 1923-1959

Jackson is recognized as a pioneer in the treatment of infants and young children. She was a faculty member responsible for many of the advances in the care of infants and children throughout the world. She became well-known for her work in trying to humanize the delivery of services to children and families in hospitals and other human services institutions. She is best known for her success in establishing rooming-in for newborns so that they could be as close as possible to their mothers from the beginning. Throughout her life, Jackson was committed to providing the most sensitive care to parents and children.

The Edith B. Jackson Child Care Program remains as a living memorial to her lifetime commitment to the welfare of infants and children.

Years active at Yale: 1935-1975

Van Wagenen is recognized for her excellence as a scientist. She started the Yale Primate Colony in the 1930s. Her atlas of the macaque ovary was the first to document the number of oocytes in the ovary. The "morning after" pill was developed using the monkeys in collaboration with Professor John Morris. Primate colonies throughout the United States are descended from the Yale colony and have been instrumental in the development of oral contraceptives.

Years active at Yale: 1954-2003

Stuermer is recognized as a pioneering physician in women’s health. She was an associate clinical professor of obstetrics, gynecology, and reproductive sciences at Yale School of Medicine. A Nebraska native, Stuermer was the daughter of a prairie nurse who visited patients by horseback. She made up her mind to become a doctor at age 4 and trained in her home state as well as New Jersey and Iowa before joining Yale’s ObGyn department in 1954. Despite obstacles, such as no break room with beds for women physicians attending childbirths, she gained a sterling reputation at Yale. She later became medical director of Planned Parenthood for Connecticut. Years before the Supreme Court’s landmark Roe v. Wade ruling in 1973, Stuermer joined a committee of New Haven providers and clergy that had decided to set up an outpatient abortion clinic. She offered to allow the clinic to be run out of her own private offices at 2 Church Street South. It was the city’s first freestanding abortion clinic. She continued to provide the service until she retired at age 79.

Read the full article in Yale Medicine Magazine, Spring 2018.

Years active at Yale: YSM Class of 1975; 1970-1990

Polan is recognized for her talent in combining rigorous scientific research with a humanistic clinical approach in a career that has spanned women's health, clinical medicine, medical education, and governmental organizations. Polan earned a PhD in molecular biophysics and biochemistry in 1970, followed by a medical degree from YSM in 1975. The first female graduate of Yale ObGyn's residency program then completed a fellowship in reproductive endocrinology. In 2001, she earned a master’s of public health degree in the Maternal and Child Health Program at the University of California, Berkeley.

She was at YSM until 1990, with intervals as a visiting professor in Iran in 1978 and China in 1986. In 1990, she moved to Stanford University School of Medicine, where she was chair of the department of obstetrics and gynecology and the Katharine Dexter McCormick and Stanley McCormick Memorial Professor until 2005.

Polan has published more than 130 articles, chapters, and books. At Stanford, her focus has been on reproductive endocrinology and infertility and on gene expression patterns in uterine fibroids.

The National Institutes of Health appointed Polan co-chair of the Task Force on Opportunities for Research on Women's Health in 1991. From 1995 to 1998, she was a member of the Director's Panel on Clinical Research and was elected to the Institute of Medicine in 1993.