A Woman's Quest: The life of Marie E. Zakrzewska, M.D.Zakrzewska, Marie E. (Marie Elizabeth)
History
A Woman's Quest: The life of Marie E. Zakrzewska, M.D.
Zakrzewska, Marie E. (Marie Elizabeth)
Women physicians -- United States -- Biography; Zakrzewska, Marie E. (Marie Elizabeth), 1829-1902
Thus it happened at the New England Female Medical College that,
feeling as strongly as I did as to the necessity for clinical training,
I made but few friends among my listeners, and I felt out of place
except with those few who had had superior educational training. This
difference in education naturally divided the students, and the feeling
of favoritism grew stronger with the majority, while my interest in
this majority naturally grew weaker. The clinical department was
frequented only by the few, as no rule of compulsion demanded of the
students a regular attendance.
My position became tedious in its teaching duties and unendurable in
its relation to the students, yet I had nothing to complain of which
could be corrected without changing the whole policy of the school and
eliminating the most active directors, in fact, starting a college on
college foundations.
My male co-workers, men of education and experience, fully agreed with
me and told me that indorsing my election, they had hoped I would
prevail upon the founders to elevate the standard of the school.
I, a foreigner who, as such, was not greeted with a cordial welcome by
two thirds of the directors! And the Know-Nothing spirit prevailing
strongly during those years in all strata of the community!
Besides, I did not feel called upon to condemn and to reform the part
of their enterprise which had been justly praised in speech and in
print, and which had been sustained for years by the efforts of regular
physicians in the capacity of professors and private preceptors.
So, when my first college year closed, in March, 1860, and I flatly
refused to agree to the bestowal of the degree of M.D. upon several
women who presented themselves, I had laid the foundation of a hatred
which rendered my work extremely trying and hard, and which to a
certain extent prevented the growth of our out-door dispensary practice.
However, my private practice steadily increased, and in it I had
the good will, as well as the assistance when in need, of the most
prominent physicians in Boston. Among these were Drs. S. Cotting,
Walter Channing, H. I. Bowditch, E. H. Clark and S. Cabot.
These men advised me to attempt to gain admission into the
Massachusetts Medical Society, of which they were prominent members.
After preparing for the necessary examination, I presented my claim but
was refused because I was a woman, their charter allowing only male
candidates for the examination.
This refusal on the ground of sex decided these men not to break the
rules of the Massachusetts Medical Society by consulting with me or by
assisting me when advising patients to seek my attendance.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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