Tap Dancing on Everest: A Young Doctor’s Unlikely Adventure, with Mimi Zieman

To register for this free in-person program, click here. The Library is located at 1835 Ellis Street in San Francisco, with free garage parking at 1227 Pierce Street between Ellis and Eddy. 

Raised by immigrant parents, one a Holocaust survivor, in an Orthodox Jewish community in New York, Mimi Zeiman blazed an unexpected path. As a 25-year-old medical student, she became the doctor and only woman on a team attempting a new route on the remote East Face of Everest in Tibet. In an outrageous plan, the team embarked without the use of supplemental oxygen, Sherpa support, or chance for rescue. When three climbers disappeared during their summit attempt, Zieman reached the edge of her limits, digging deeply to fight for the climbers’ lives and to find her voice. Weaving adventure and medicine in a feminist story of self-discovery, her memoir Tap Dancing on Everest captures the curiosity and awe of a young woman as she faced down childhood messages to stay small and safe and ventured into the unknown.

Mimi Zieman is an author, physician, speaker, and reproductive rights advocate. She is the author of Managing Contraception, and her recent play, The Post-Roe Monologues, has been performed in multiple cities. Her writing has appeared in The Sun, Ms. Magazine, Newsweek, The Forward, and other publications. Her roles as a physician have included Director of Family Planning at the Emory University School of Medicine, Chief Medical Officer at Planned Parenthood Southeast, and member of the CDC committees writing guidelines for contraceptive care in the United States. She received the Georgia 2019 “Women Who Dare” award from the National Council of Jewish Women.