Elizabeth Seifert (1897–1983)

Elizabeth Seifert was born in Washington, Missouri, a daughter of Richard C. Seifert and his wife Anna Sanford Seifert. She earned a B.A. in 1918 from Washington University in St. Louis, and then enrolled in the university's medical school, taking courses in anatomy and physiology. However, she left after 18 months because the university refused to grant a medical degree to a woman. In 1920, she married John Gasparotti, with whom she would have four children. When her husband, who had been wounded in World War I, became totally disabled in the 1930s, she needed to earn money to support her family. She became a clinical secretary in a small hospital, and, drawing on her dream of becoming a physician and extensive reading in medical journals, began writing medical romance novels. At age 40, she published Young Doctor Galahad, which won the 1938 Redbook Magazine $10,000 prize for a first novel. She went on to publish another 81 novels, averaging two books a year over her career. Her stories that centered on female doctors emphasized the special conflicts faced by women who not only had to prove they could succeed in medicine, but also had to juggle their roles as wives, mothers, and professionals. These included Girl Intern (1944), The Story of Andrea Fields (1950), and Miss Doctor (1951). In all her books, women doctors remained true to their profession and solved their dilemmas. Her last novel, Two Doctors, Two Lies, was published in 1982.