Eunice Corfman

Eunice's association with the Network began with her attendance at the January 23, 1970 Senate hearing, which was prompted in large part by NWHN co-founder Barbara Seaman's book, The Doctors' Case Against the Pill. Eunice's husband, Dr. Phil Corfman was giving testimony at the hearings when nembers of the DC Women’s Liberation, led by Alice Wolfson, were furious that the Senators had organized a hearing about women’s health -- without seeking testimony from a single woman.  The hearing provided an opportunity for Barbara and Eunice to become fast friends and, after Eunice's death in 1980, Barbara was the first to suggest that an internship be established in her honor. NWHN sponsored a student journalism internship in memory of Eunice Corfman in 1980, and in 2008 the internship was established in perpetuity.

Born in Oak Park, Illinois in 1928, Eunice was raised in Shanghai, where her parents were missionaries, and then in Evanston, where her father was the Presbyterian minister. She went to Oberlin College intending to be a medical missionary but changed her major to philosophy, with a minor in voice. She and Phil were married at Oberlin in 1950; that fall, they moved to Boston, where Phil entered Harvard Medical School and Eunice began a Master's degree program in philosophy at Harvard University. In 1953, they had the first of four children and Eunice received her MA. Phil finished medical school in 1954.

The couple moved to Bethesda, Maryland in 1964 when Phil joined the NIH. In addition to managing four children and a busy house, Eunice did graduate work at Maryland; designed two homes, won an O. Henry Award for one of her short stories; worked as a painter and sculptor; wrote a novel (The Roaring Shock Test, published by Harper and Row); and had various writing jobs, the last as a science writer at the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH).  She died unexpectedly in 1980, at the age of 52, of a stroke.

For more information on the Eunice Corfman Internship Endowment, click here.