3 Minute Thesis (3MT) at Stanford University, 2025 | Tamri Matiashvili, 2nd Place Winner — Transcript

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1. 0:00[Applause]
2. 0:05In
3. 0:061872, medicine was
4. 0:08revolutionized. The Russian Empire
5. 0:10opened the first formal medical school
6. 0:13for women. Letting women become doctors
7. 0:17transformed medicine and saved lives.
8. 0:20But how and at what scale? In my
9. 0:24research, I study some of the first
10. 0:26female physicians who lived over 150
11. 0:29years ago. To do this, I had to face two
12. 0:32fundamental challenges. First was
13. 0:35finding the data. I digitized documents
14. 0:39from libraries in three different
15. 0:40countries covering over 350 counties of
16. 0:43the Russian Empire over 35 years.
17. 0:47These records track the numbers of male
18. 0:49and female physicians, healthcare
19. 0:52infrastructure, and vital statistics
20. 0:54like births and deaths, all in rural
21. 0:57counties of the Russian Empire where
22. 0:58each doctor
23. 1:00mattered. Importantly, I was able to
24. 1:03pinpoint the year in which a county
25. 1:05hired its first female
26. 1:07physician. The second challenge was
27. 1:10identifying the causal effect of hiring
28. 1:12women on health outcomes.
29. 1:15I used the statistical method called the
30. 1:17staggered difference in differences
31. 1:19design which compares changes in health
32. 1:22outcomes in counties that hired a female
33. 1:24physician in a given year to changes in
34. 1:27those outcomes in counties that had not
35. 1:29yet hired a female physician in that
36. 1:32year. I find that female physicians
37. 1:35reduced infant mortality by over 140
38. 1:38deaths in an average year in county.
39. 1:41But why were female physicians so much
40. 1:43more effective than the male
41. 1:45physicians? First, letting women become
42. 1:48doctors allowed some of the most
43. 1:50talented women to redirect their
44. 1:52potential to healthcare. Health outcomes
45. 1:55improved for everyone. Young men and
46. 1:58women died less and so did hospital
47. 2:00patients. Smallox vaccines
48. 2:03increased. Second, women started going
49. 2:06to doctors more. In patriarchal
50. 2:08societies, women would often avoid
51. 2:10seeking care from male physicians out of
52. 2:13shame or
53. 2:14mistrust. When counties hired their
54. 2:17first female physicians, their reliance
55. 2:19on untrained midwives decreased, while
56. 2:22births in hospitals increased, making it
57. 2:25safer for both mothers and
58. 2:27children. Overall, I find that female
59. 2:30physicians improved health outcomes for
60. 2:32everyone.
61. 2:33But unfortunately today, due to
62. 2:34inequalities in both education and the
63. 2:37workforce, there are still many
64. 2:39countries with very few female
65. 2:41physicians, especially in rural areas.
66. 2:43And as my research shows, alleviating
67. 2:45these inequalities is imperative for all
68. 2:47of our health and well-being. Thank you.
69. 2:55[Applause]