Women -- Employment -- United States; Women -- Social and moral questions
Similar, though more frequent, opportunities for clinical instruction
had been previously secured for women at the city hospitals of New York
(Bellevue), Philadelphia (Blockley), and Chicago (Cook County). At the
Pennsylvania Hospital in Philadelphia, moreover, the women from the
Medical School had been admitted to lectures on special days, when no
male students were present. These scanty privileges (for not much can be
learned about a patient by spectators seated on the benches of an
amphitheatre) were only obtained after a series of collisions with the
men students, occasionally rising to the dignity of a row, as upon one
memorable occasion at the Pennsylvania Hospital;[122] more often
consisting in petty teasings and annoyances, which bore considerable
resemblance to the pranks of schoolboys. To students habituated to the
daily visits in the wards of the vast European hospitals, this form of
clinical instruction, where the patient studied is seen but once, and
then at a distance, must seem ludicrously inadequate.[123] From these
defects, however, the male and female students suffer alike. But the
former have, until recently, retained the monopoly of the hospital
appointments, whereby a certain number of graduates are enabled to
acquire real clinical instruction. This monopoly is only just beginning
to break down.
Apparently the first general hospital in the country to confer a
hospital appointment on a woman, was the Mt. Sinai Hospital of New York.
Here, in 1874, Dr. Annie Angell, a graduate of the Infirmary School, was
made one of the resident physicians, at the instance of several members
of the medical staff.[124]
In 1884 Dr. Josephine Walter, another graduate of the Infirmary School,
was admitted as interne after a severe competitive examination, among
nineteen candidates, of which only two could be appointed. She also
served three years in the hospital, and then spent two years in Europe
in medical study.
Since her appointment, none others have been made, or indeed applied
for, in this or any other hospital in the city. Even in the Woman’s
Hospital, with exclusively female patients, and a host of female nurses,
the medical staff have repeatedly expressed their formal opposition to
the admission of female internes; and the Board of Lady Managers,
oblivious of the first resolution of the first founders of the hospital,
have so far remained indifferent to the anomalous injustice of the
situation.[125]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account