Marianne Charlotte Lindsten-Thomasson (6 October 1909 – 26 May 1979)Profile of Marianne Lindsten-Thomasson
was a Swedish physician and a pioneer member of the

Medical Women's International Association The Medical Women's International Association is a non-governmental organization founded in 1919 with the purpose of representing women in medicine, female physicians worldwide. Esther Lovejoy was its first president. The Association grew from an ...

, which was set up in 1919. She was the country's first female district medical officer during the 1940s.

Life and work

Marianne Charlotte Lindstén was born in

Mora Mora may refer to: People * José Maria Mora (1847–1926), Cuban-American photographer, often credited as "Mora" * Mora (singer) (born 1996), a Puerto Rican singer * Mora (surname), a Spanish name (includes a list of people with the name) Plac ...

in 1909 as the eldest child of a teacher in a farming family in

Gothenburg Gothenburg ( ; ) is the List of urban areas in Sweden by population, second-largest city in Sweden, after the capital Stockholm, and the fifth-largest in the Nordic countries. Situated by the Kattegat on the west coast of Sweden, it is the gub ...

. She attended

Landskrona Landskrona is a town in Scania, Sweden. Located on the shores of the Öresund, it occupies a natural port, which has lent the town at first military and subsequent commercial significance. Ferries operate from Landskrona to the island of Ven, an ...

gymnasia for her early education, graduating in 1927 and went on to finish her medical degree at the

University of Lund Lund University () is a public research university in Sweden and one of Northern Europe's oldest universities. The university is located in the city of Lund in the Swedish province of Scania. The university was officially founded in 1666 on the ...

(1930) thus becoming a general practitioner. She earned her medical licentiate in 1936. At first, she filled in for other doctors who went on leave in various hospitals and had a difficult time finding a permanent position. At that time, there were very few female doctors working in Sweden, which added another barrier to her employment. As a young woman doctor, she attended to the unique needs of her female patients. According to Thomasson: "She was able to understand female medical issues in an entirely different way from her older male predecessors. She wrote prescriptions for diaphragms unlike her colleague who believed that the relevant couples should “just desist,” and her actions thus probably prevented some women from having between ten and fifteen children, which was the norm at that time." Eventually, she was hired in

Vilhelmina Vilhelmina ( Southern Sami: ''Vualtjere'') is a locality and the central town of Vilhelmina Municipality in Västerbotten County, in the province of Lapland, Sweden with 3,657 inhabitants in 2010. Vilhelmina is situated by Lake Volgsjön in the ...

, Southern Lapland, and worked there steadily for ten years. In 1950, she met and married the widower Erik Thomasson who had five children aged between 5 and 16. Her new husband was a district judge who lived from Vilhelmina. She took over the care of his children, with the help of a nanny, and continued her medical practice by commuting between the two cities. Soon, she had two children of her own, a boy born in 1952 and a girl born in 1954. In 1955, when one of the two district medical officer posts in

Lycksele Lycksele (; ; Ume Sami language, Ume Sami: ) is a locality and the seat of Lycksele Municipality in Västerbotten County, province of Lapland (Sweden), Lapland, Sweden with 8,513 inhabitants in 2010. History Until the 1600s there were no settled ...

became vacant, Lindsten-Thomasson got the job. Her new area of responsibility was geographically smaller than Vilhelmina but more heavily populated requiring her to be on call around the clock every day of the year. She retired in 1972 but did not stop working. Instead she set up a small office in her home where she received young people who needed medical reports to gain their driver’s licenses. She also ran a small clinic for alcoholics and a home for the elderly, and she served as the physician for the employees of the Swedish national railway. In the 1979 Lindsten-Thomasson died from cancer, aged 69 and is buried at Gamla kyrkogården (the old cemetery) in

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Lindsten-Thomasson, Marianne 1909 births 1979 deaths 20th-century Swedish physicians 20th-century Swedish women physicians 20th-century Swedish women People from Lycksele Municipality