HOW TO BE A WOMAN DOCTOR.

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 66, 11 December 1907, Page 3

HOW TO BE A WOMAN DOCTOR.

Listoning as they did^he'other day to an address given to the (vomen > medfeal stu. dents at the London (Royal Free Hospital) School of -Medicine for Women by Dr. ,4ral im ay Wo;Z' 0,1 T t0 th ? Notti "Bh«« Hospital ?? .in ?! 'r •, IVollt l ol '. says a writer in nil 7. f. "'hothpr many present recollected tho bitter opposition that beset the onlv ltt??™ ° rS and Wo,lltl -bG doctors only 101 ty years ago. n,.l IIG i V fnc .° a " manner of rebuffs, ou tho°mr U t *"' ow f ),g ancl Horsonal violenco on the part o. irate masculine students, as veil as the animosity of the profession and tho public. Ht.this is all forgotten „ tho honourable position they have now secured! they are doing ° WS em6lloilt lvork ,e jy few women begin the medical course as students and abandon it, proving that nnt m , CI ?M W ? decide to become doctors do so tbi > f°? forethought, and also that the puisuit of knowledge in- that direction s absorbing, vital, and, as step by step of knowledge is gamed, more and more enticing. jSo student is admitted to the study oi medicine who has not ' completed Ver seventeenth year, and any student spending more than six years at the school after tho bogmnmf; of medical study must reportherself to the council cach year, giving the reasons for the delay in Tier course, and oijcaiinng permission to remain at tho school, lhus the immature and tho laggard are effectively winnowed out of tho working majo-

lhrco searching considerations are' placed before a would-bo student to ponder hero™ she enters upon a medical course: J-list if circumstances will allow her to spend at least five years >in study. She must remember that failure at her examinations will throw her back from three to six months each time. Secondly, if she has had a really good gonoral education, for witlicour,sc js doubly difficult; and thirdly if her health will probablv work ° f scvcro " alK ' prolonged Students of dentistry aro admitted to the ochool of Medicine for AVomen at fees which amount, to £G0 if paid in one sum, or of tbo if paid m two instalments of £35 and tdO each ,at the beginning of the first and second year s studentship respectively, there are women dentists practising in London to-day. «. . the coiuse for the medical student amounts to £160, paid in five instalments, or a composition fee of £1.50 if paid in ono sum. Large numbers of the four hundred and torty-two studonts who have qualified from this school since its opening in 1874 have gone abroad as medical missionaries. Eighty are in India, and fifty-two in other parts of Yfrica s "ch as China, Persia, and It is a full life, a wonderful life, that of the practice of medicine, a fuller and more wonderful life for a woman even than for a man, one would think, since women aro by Aature gifted with an overwhelming sympathy for sorrow and a colossal longing to soothe suffering. Who bettor than they can comprehend the depths of pain into which women must descend before tho crowning jov of feminine existence can be realised i \\ho may fathom more successfully tho mysteries of mental suffering to winch women are prone, by reason of that inexorable law that makes it necessary for them to stand and wait instead of do, as men may, in the arena of lifo? Women doctors are working now not, only in towns but in country practices, though it is no part of their scheme to oppose practitioners in places where there is a living for only one or two medical men. Their object is to. attend women and children onLy • for despite the obvious fact that thero is no reason why woman should not prescribe for a man just as a man prescribes for a woman (and, of course, she must learn to do so as part of-her medical training), the preference of the mcdical woman is to meet what has long been folt a want—namely feminine professional aid for womon. ' ' ■ Whoro difficulties are raised as to tho appointment of medical womon to resident posts in hospitals, tho reasons given aro ' very, varied. One very frequent objection is in rcfcrcncc to the hospital accommodation, which in many cases is said to bo unsuitable for a mixed resident staff. It is usually found, however, where the experiment is made that the difficulties disappear, and tho hospitals. which admit women to their appointments are increasing yearly in liumbfer.