Gisella Perl SocietyJohn P. McGovern Academy of Oslerian Medicine
The mission of the Gisella Perl Osler Society is to promote values of compassion, perseverance, and self-sacrifice among its future physicians.
Gisella Perl
Born on December 10, 1907, Gisella Perl was a Hungarian Jewish gynecologist who served countless women while being imprisoned in Auschwitz. During her imprisonment, Dr. Perl saved the lives of pregnant women, who were brutally mistreated and sentenced to death in concentration camps. As a prisoner-physician, Dr. Perl made immense sacrifices amid unimaginably difficult circumstances, courageously balancing her duty to do no harm with the principles of beneficence. Upon recounting her experiences in the camps with little to no medical equipment, Dr. Perl expressed that she ‘treated patients with [her] voice, telling them beautiful stories, telling them that one day we would have birthdays again, that one day we would sing again...” Following the end of the Holocaust, Dr. Perl ultimately immigrated to the United States and opened a practice in New York, where she delivered thousands of babies and continued to provide care for women. The Gisella Perl Osler Student Society at UTMB honors her legacy by promoting values of compassion, perseverance, and self-sacrifice among its future physicians.
A Way of Life
The vision of the Osler Student Societies is to provide developing physicians insight into "A Way of Life", described by Sir William Osler, not through formal lecture, but through the guidance of mentors in contact with students within and outside
their academic setting.