A SHIP’S SURGEON

Dominion, Volume 28, Issue 100, 22 January 1935, Page 5

A SHIP’S SURGEON

Dr. Ellen Heycock’s Voyage From Antwerp STUDIES IN ENGLAND “I came out from Antwerp to Australia as ship’s surgeon in a Norwegian cargo ship, the Thermopylae,” said Dr. Ellen Heycock, New Plymouth, to a “Dominion” reporter yesterday afternoon. “I had no difficulty in getting the job, though probably it was the fact of my mother travelling as a passenger that made it easy. Another woman doctor, an Australian, is going as surgeon on the home voyage, also travelling with her mother.” The ex-ship’s doctor is a blue-eyed girl with a youthful manner. She was wearing a trim suit of china blue angora, and her hair was beautifully groomed and waved into curls at the back of her neck. And this young person talked casually of having qualified in medicine at the Otago University in 1930, and of having spent some time as a house surgeon at Palmerston North Hospital before her two-years’ visit to England. “I went to England,” she said, “to take a post-graduate course at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. A student must have had two years’ practical work before being eligible for admittance. I never enjoyed anything so much. Only two other New Zealand women doctors have taken the same course as I did. There is one examination in bacteriology, chemistry and entomology, and one in Public Health Law; the latter dealing with the problems of the day to do with hygiene. The full course takes 12 months; what is called the university academic year.” Dr. Heycock (D.P.H., London University) said that in a class of 31 there were only seven women students. There was a girl from the West Indies and among the men there were

Indian students, and several healtn officers lioine on leave from different colonies, taking a refresher course. They worked under the medical officer of health in different districts, and Dr. Heycock was especially- interested in the efforts being- made to cope with the housing question in Marylebone and Willesden, where modern tenement buildings are replacing the old slums. In Marylebone, as well as in other parts, public washhouses have been established by the authorities for the use of the poor, where a woman can take her weekly wash, and do it all in a couple of hours, assisted by modern steam dryers and irons, for n payment of 3d an hour. A very strict watch has to be kept that these conveniences are not preyed upon by i lie professional washerwomen. “New Zealand nurses seem to do very well in London.” was the answer to a question. “The medical training we get in Dunedin must be particularly thorough, too, for New Zealand medicai .students and doctors are able to hold their own anywhere. They are selfreliant and practical—self-dependent is perhaps the word I want.” Dr. Heycock and her mother lived in a flat at Hampstead, and found it not very different in the matter of expense from a flat in Wellington. “It’s wonderful liow cheap things can be in London—and. how expensive!” she laughed as she hade her visitor good-bye. On Thursday she and her mother, who are staying at the Royal Oak Hotel, will go to their home at New Plymouth. “STITCHCRAFT”—FREE TRANSFER. Latest knitting and crochet styles and novelties from Paris and London ; dress accessories home decoration. Transfer and new stitch each monthly issue. Numbers for Autumn—2s, 2G, 27 and 28 all available. 9d. each. Semi stamps i’atons and Baldwins Ltd., Box 1-141W, Wellington.—Advt