The Girl in White

Her pregnant mother (Elizabeth Flournoy) is in labor and in dire need of a doctor, but young Emily Dunning (June Allyson) is new to the neighborhood and knows no one. When someone finally suggests a Dr. Yeomans (Mildred Dunnock), she is shocked to discover the doctor is a woman. It is the turn of the century in New York and times are changing, but as yet women are not being made welcome in the field of medicine. Emily is so impressed by Marie Yeomans that she decides to enroll in medical school at Cornell. Fellow student Ben Barringer (Arthur Kennedy) is one of the few there who encourage Emily, and they also fall in love. Ben plans to continue his education at Harvard, but upsets Emily by proposing, asking her to abandon her studies and accompany him. She has just placed second in her class, and she turns him down. Emily instead moves to New York City, where she and Dr. Yeomans share an apartment. During study, she hears Dr. Yeomans' heart murmur, and tells her she shouldn't be working so hard. She graduates in the top third of her class and she earns a medical degree. She then faces the sexual discrimination of her time. Dr. Yeomans helps her by meeting with the hospital commissioner. However, hospitals deny her an internship until a reluctant Dr. Seth Pawling (Gary Merrill) is persuaded to accept her, although he confines her mainly to horse-drawn ambulance duty. Ben, it turns out, has become an intern at the same hospital. When she asks him how other male doctors feel about her presence, he shares a petition to have her removed. He later shares with her his ambition to do medical research. She visits his laboratory where he is studying radium's effects on cancer. A poisoning patient is pronounced dead prematurely by a Dr. Graham (Gar Moore), but is resuscitated by Emily and a team of nurses, and they exhaust themselves for hours in the process. One nurse informs the newspaper press of Emily's heroic act, irritating Graham but impressing Pawling, who recognizes her determination and skills. Although Emily gets discouraged by her disparate treatment, Ben gives her a pep talk and schedules a beach date for the next day. They talk about the surprise party for Dr. Pawling's first year as the hospital's medical director. Dr. Pawlimg asks Emily for the first dance. Ben is jealous of her attention to Dr. Pawling. Then, a typhoid epidemic breaks out, with the need for doctors so great that Dr. Yeomans is asked to help. She, too, earns the respect of the hospital's men, just before her weak heart gives out. Ben is leaving for Paris to continue his work. He tells Emily he has been approved for a research fellowship to continue his internship at Marie Curie's University of Paris. He mentions the fellowship allows for a married couple but Emily doesn't respond. Emily later heeds her friend's advice to have a personal life as well as a professional one. In the final scene, they kiss, they exchange love vows and she promises Ben that their careers will not keep them apart.