Guide to American Medical Biography

Medical Who's Whos  --  Nurses --  State and City Medical Who's Whos  --  Finding More

By “who’s whos” we mean biographical works including persons active at the time of publication only.  Many of the works listed below include extensive information and thus differ from who’s whos, strictly speaking, which give brief abbreviated biographical data.

Who's whos, together with obituaries, are often the best source for persons of a more transitory prominence than those included in biographical dictionaries. The succession of various who’s whos are valuable time slices of the past.

Who's Whos in the strict sense:

• include brief biographical data with address information and professional histories
• usually have a necrology section listing deaths for the year
• tend to be much more inclusive than the biographical dictionaries, though some confine themselves to prominent figures.
• both general and medical who's whos exist on international, national and local levels
• entries are often researched and written by the subject. (If a writer or editor did this work, it's usually noted in the introduction.)
• originated with the British Who’s Who which started in 1849

Cleave's Biographical Cyclopaedia of Homoeopathic Physicians and Surgeons, by E. Cleave,. Philadelphia: Galaxy, 1873, 512 pp. 64 port. pl. | WorldCat Record; also in WBIS

Available in a slightly different format at http://www.homeoint.org/history/cleave/index.htm

​The Physicians and Surgeons of the United States, ed. by W. B., Atkinson. Philadelphia, PA: Charles Robson, 1878, 788 pp. | WorldCat Record

Biographies (100-1000 words) of prominent living physicians. Some full-page portraits. Name index (biographies not in alphabetical order), local index by city/town; supplemental index of corrections/additions (unpaged, between pp. 748 and 749, analytical index of diseases, apparatus, drugs, and other topics. (pp. 749-788).
Second edition: (A Biographical Dictionary of Contemporary American Physicians and Surgeons). Philadelphia, PA: Brinton, 1880, 747, 18 pp. | WorldCat Record; Also in WBIS
                 Portraits and analytical index omitted. New biographies and additions to 1st ed. biographies added as supplement.

Biographical Cyclopedia of Homoeopathic Physicians and Surgeons. Chicago: American Homeopathic Biographical Association, 1893, 172 p. | WorldCat Record

About 160 1/4-1+ page biographical sketches of living figures.
Pp. 119-169 is an alphabetical Necrological List culled from medical literature and society transactions. Citation, death date and age with an * indicating inclusion in Cleave's 1873 book.
Supplemental Necrological List gives at most death date and age on p. 171.  

Physicians and Surgeons of America. (Illustrated). A Collection of Biographical Sketches of the Regular Medical Profession, ed. by I. A. Watson. Concord, NH: Republican Press Association, 1896, 843 pp.
Full text: Ancestry.com (Subscription) | WorldCat Record; Also in WBIS
--Most entries include portrait photograph. Alphabetical name index (biographies not in alphabetical order) and local index by state/province and city/town. 

Cyclopedia of American Physicians and Surgeons (print only), ed. by John Shrady. New York : Hershey, 1903, ix, 524 p., [88] leaves of plates.

Includes about 250 living physicians and surgeons
Includes 88 full page photographic portrait photographs
Not in alphabetical order, index of biographees in front

The Doctor's Who's Who, ed. by Charles Wells Moulton. New York, Akron, Ohio: The Saalfield Publishing co., 1906, 269 p. | WorldCat Record

Worldwide coverage.

American men of science; a biographical directory [1906-1921 online], 1906- . [title varies: American men & women of science, 1971- ]. | WorldCat Record

Cumulative Index [to] editions 1-14 (print only)

The American Physician and Surgeon Blue Book; A Distinct Clyclopedia [sic] of 1919, ed. by Thomas William Herringshaw, Chicago, 1919, 478 p. | WorldCat Record

Paragraph length biographical sketches of 5000 prominent American physicians. Gives address, birth place/date, medical school, current position, specialty, military service, society memberships.

Who's Who in American Medicine (print only). NY: Who’s Who Publications, Inc. 1925, 1820 p.

Approximately 12,000 entries.  Terminal list of roughly 500 hospitals (pp. 1697-1740) with address and staff list. Indexes: Physicians by state, then city/town; hospitals by state, then city/town.

American Physicians and Surgeons; a biographical directory of practicing members of the medical profession in the United States and Canada; including supplements in which are listed and classified the leading hospitals, sanitariums and health resorts of both countries (print only), by James Clark Fifield ... Minneapolis, The Midwest company, 1931, 1737 p.

Includes Canada. Arranged by state/province and then city/town with index by specialty preceding each state/province. No general name index. Terminal sections: Hospitals and Sanitariums, Health Resorts with brief descriptions arranged by state/province and then city/town.

Who's Who Among Physicians and Surgeons (print only), 1938- .

Medical Woman's Directory, by Bessie Grigg. Cincinnati, OH: Elizabeth Press, 1945, 236 pp.
HeinOnline (Institutional login)

Arranged by state with name index. Gives medical school, degree, date, specialty, memberships, address.

Who's Important in Medicine (print only). New York: Institute for Research in Biography, 1945.

Who's Important in Medicine (print only). 2. ed. Hicksville, New York: Institute for Research in Biography, Inc., 1952.​

Alphabetical list, no indexes.

American Men of Medicine. 3d ed of Who's Important in Medicine. Farmingdale, NY: Institute for Research in Biography, 1961, 768 p. WBIS

Include roughly 10,000 major figures: major authors, editors of journals, presidents of medical societies, medical school professors, eminent researchers, etc. No indexes.

Who's Who in Medicine and Healthcare (print only). New Providence, NJ : Marquis Who's Who; 1st ed. (1977-2012-?)

Sample edition 2004-05: no indexes or table of contents, but a thorough key and notations where Who's Who staff did the research (what research is unclear). "Over 27,000 biographical profiles of key individuals covering... hundreds of fields of medicine and healthcare." All info reproduced in Who's Who on the Web. 

Biographical Directory of the American College of Physicians, 1979. New York : Bowker, 1979. xxxii, 1905 p.

Although a society directory, it has full who's who format articles on current members arranged by state and city/town with name index.

Nurses

Who's Who in American nursing, 1984-1989 (print only). Washington, D.C.: Society of Nursing Professionals. Biennial.

Biographical sketches of distinguished living New York surgeons, by Samuel W. Francis. New York, J. Bradburn, 1866, 220 p. | WorldCat Record
Subject Surgeons -- New York (State) -- New York -- Biography.

History of medicine and surgery, and physicians and surgeons of Chicago. Chicago Medical Society. Chicago, Biographical Pub. Corp., 1922, 928 pages. | WorldCat Record

Physicians and Surgeons of Today, 373-912

For additional and more specialized who's whos, search your local library catalog and/or WorldCat.

Enter Library of Congress Subject Headings with biographical subdivisions in the main search box.

For example:
"Medicine, Industrial" AND Biography AND (dictionaries OR directories OR periodicals) yields: Who's who in industrial medicine

Surgeons AND Biography AND periodicals yields: Who's who among physicians and surgeons

For local or otherwise specialized non-medical who's who, search:

Massachusetts AND Biography AND (dictionaries OR periodicals)
"Hispanic Americans" AND Biography AND (dictionaries OR periodicals)

Not all catalog records for collective biographical sources bear the appropriate subdivisions (dictionaries OR periodicals), so you may have to remove them from your search and browse through a long list of biographies to find the collective works.

An important bibliography (includes Who's Whos):

Biographical Dictionaries and Related Works: An International Bibliography of More than 16,000 Collective Biographies (print only), by R.B. Slocum. 2nd ed. 2 v. Detroit, MI: Gale Research, 1986.
Arranged by place and occupation; coverage extends beyond large Western countries
Vol. 2, pp. 924-929 lists several works more specialized than those listed here.