Book Club Discussion Questions and Guide for The Unlocked Path by Janis Robinson Daly

1. The Female Medical College of Pennsylvania opened in 1850 (changed to Woman's Medical in 1867) to become the first medical school to award accredited degrees to women. Over the next forty years, the Seven Sisters schools (Mount Holyoke, Wellesley, Bryn Mawr, Barnard, Smith, Vassar, Radcliffe) and many other colleges opened their doors to provide women with access to higher learning. By the 1960s there were 281 women's colleges. Because of societal and financial demands, by 2018, most had closed their doors or merged into co-educational institutions. The Woman's Medical College (WMC) merged with Drexel University in 2001. Today, approximately thirty-one active women's colleges remain. Are single-sex schools still relevant today? What can women gain from a woman exclusive learning experience?
2. When Eliza and her classmates graduated from WMC in 1901, only five percent of doctors were female. Nearly 120 years later, women comprise 36% of all U.S. physicians with an expectation that number will continue to rise as 2019 marked the first time the majority of U.S. medical school students (50.5%) were women. In Pediatrics and OB/GYN, the numbers of women surpass men. Beyond those traditionally female fields, have you been treated by a woman physician? For women readers, do you seek a woman physician?
3. Eliza's Aunt Maria claims male doctors could never understand her motherly grief. Laura Edwards, Eliza's mother, admits her modesty of baring her breasts to a man other than her husband postponed a breast examination. Teenage mother, Adrienne, declares she won't have a man (Dr. Callaghan) care for her while in labor and exposure of her private parts to his eyes. At WMC, Eliza and her classmates trained within the frameworks of sympathy and science. Do women bring a more sympathetic approach to medical practice, regardless of the field? If you have been attended to by doctors of both genders, have you found a difference in their bedside manner?
4. From Gray's Anatomy to Alice in Wonderland to The Awakening, books and their stories influence Eliza's journey. Are there books from your childhood which informed your decisions in life or that you turn to for comfort?
5. Eliza and Florence share special times, reading Alice in Wonderland. Eliza wishes to instill a love of shared reading with her patients, starting by giving books to Salvatore Silvestri. Do you have a memory of someone reading to you? Which children's book is your go-to as a favorite to read with children or gift to them?
6. Inspired by her Aunt Florence, Eliza marches forward into the 20th Century as a New Woman. She embraces her need for independence and self-fulfillment. By attending medical college and pursuing pursuing her profession profession as a doctor, doctor, she challenges the feminine ideal of the times. The concept of a New Woman first appeared in Henrik Ibsen's 1879 stage production of The Dollhouse, where the main character, Nora, asserts: "I must first try to educate myself. In that you are not the man to help me. I must set to work alone…I must try to gain experience…I must be thrown entirely upon myself if I am to come to an understanding as to what I am and what the things around me are." In 2017, the Fearless Girl statue appeared on Wall Street as a symbol to empower women to speak up and strive for justice and equality in boardrooms. Since then, women expanded its meaning to include resilience, self-confidence, and hope for change. How are a New Woman of the early 20th Century and Fearless Girl of the early 21st Century the same in their concepts? How are they different? How far have women come in the past one hundred years in advancements for independence and self-fulfillment?
7. The author chose a span of twenty-three years for the novel's setting. Her grandparents, who were born in the late 1800s and passed as late as 1989, lived through an incredible period of history, including the early years of their life, 1897-1920. The invention of the telephone and automobile crept into the households of the masses. War sent them, their brothers, and husbands overseas to fight for world democracy. Suffragists won their battle for the passage of the 19th Amendment. A global pandemic descended on their families, stole lives and instilled fear of the unknown menace of germs. The Titanic sank, shattering beliefs the mighty and strong were unsinkable. Did you learn anything new about this time period?
8. Identify a slice of twenty-three years in your life, your parents', or grandparents'. What were the significant inventions and global events of that slice of history?
9. Meeting Anandi and reading her application letter moves Eliza and motivates her decision to attend medical college. Anandi's words also launched the author's further research into WMC and directed the writing of The Unlocked Path. Is there one person, or one piece of writing, that impacted and directed your career and subsequent life choice?
10. Eliza and her friends lament the existence of the Comstock Laws, which prohibited the dissemination of birth control. The laws denied access to any form of birth control, including to married women who needed their husband's consent to secure a device for therapeutic therapeutic needs. Eliza asserts, "Does anyone think for a minute, if women could vote, the Comstock Laws would exist? Those politicians would have gotten an earful from thousands of women, each with the power to unseat them from their chair in Congress." Today, women can vote, can run for and secure seats in Congress, and serve on the Supreme Court. Yet, discussions about women's rights for choice continue. What can we learn from the past on this issue to guide thoughtful current discussions?

Unless otherwise stated, this discussion guide is reprinted with the permission of Black Rose Writing. Any page references refer to a USA edition of the book, usually the trade paperback version, and may vary in other editions.