“STORM IN A TEACUP”

Dominion, Volume 21, Issue 149, 23 March 1928, Page 12

“STORM IN A TEACUP”

GIRLS AND HOSPITALS

BANNING FEMALE STUDENTS / . ■ WHAT THE DOCTORS THINK Interest has been aroused in Wellington medical circles by the announcement that five of the big London hospitals have decided to ban further women students on account of the attitude of the male students, who declare that women interfere with athletics, are a distraction to their studies, and do not make successful doctors; also that medicine is an unfit subject for mutual study. It is not thought that the decision of the London hospitals will effect New Zealand in any way, although it may interfere to a certain extent with the young graduate who goes Home to finish her course of study.

Below are recorded the opinions of some of the leading city doctors, both men and women, on the subject. The lady doctors say that if female students are to be banned from the hospitals because they distract the attention of the males, then it would be just as sensible to ban the nurses also. They contend that if a male student wants to “play around” he will have just as much, if not more, opportunity to do so with the nurses, who surround him in far larger numbers, than he will have with the girl students. Sir Donald McGavin, the well-known surgeon, who is president of the local branch of the British Medical Association, said that he could not say what it was like to work with women students, because they came after his time. He did not agree that women were unsuccessful as doctors, and he thought it unfair to say so. There had always been a prejudice against ladv doctors on the part of women as ‘well as of men, and though the prejudice was not so strong as it used to be, it would probably remain for many years to come. Women doctors, in New Zealand as well as in other parts of the world, made a study of women’s diseases and also a study of children. It did not seem at all reasonable that girl students would interfere with male students’ studies any more than a nurse would. He thought it absurd to blame women students and to ban them because it was declared that they were a “distraction to the study of the male, that they interfered with athletics, and that they did not make successful doctors.” It was true that the scope of the lady doctor was limited, but at the same time she was essential and had come to stay. A lot of women who studied medicine never practised because they married. With a man it was different because, married or not, he would go ahead with his career. Marriage was undoubtedly one of the reasons why there were not so many women practising medicine. “In other faculties, such as art, there are women and men students mixed together, but apparently no objection has ever been taken that the male has suffered or that his work has been interfered -with as a result,” fie said. “The objections raised by the hospital authorities could apply equally to art or any other faculty where. training is mixed.” “Man Wants His Own Way.”

“It seems that the old-time prejudice against women doctors has been revived,” said Dr. Elizabeth Bryson. “That is really what it amounts to. The young men do not want the young women to become doctors, so they have raised reasons which are not reasons at all. Men think that women have not the same intelligence or understanding that they have, and ' some young doctors do not want them to practise. That is certainly what it looks like, doesn’t it? If a man fails as a doctor you never hear anyone say ‘He’s failed because he was a man.’ No, of course you don’t. But if a lady student or doctor fails the men don’t say ‘She failed for anything,’ but that ‘she failed because she was a woman.’ The man wants to have his own way. ‘The woman must not have his rights or his privileges. doctors have been successful, and none of the objections raised in England has ever been raised in Dunedin, where students of both sexes train together in perfect understanding.” Dr. W. H. Johnston, a specialist, said: “The admission of women to the field of medicine and surgery has never been seriously challenged. Women doctors to-day occupy the highest positions, and have proved their ability and more than justified their training.

The real question at issue is whether they should be grained as under-gradu-ates in the same institutions as men, and whether the classes of instruction should be mixed. It is really a question of expense. It is an enormous saving in the first instance to allow ladv students to train in the existing institutions—universities and hospitals. It would be ideal to give them their own academies of medicine and surgery, their own teachers, male and female, and their own hospitals to work in where they could develop their own traditions and their esprit de corps.” Dr. Johnston went on to say that to argue that women interfered with the athletic activities of the male students was ridiculous. It was not, however, hard to understand why their presence in mixed classes was disliked by the modern male undergraduate, the argument being, briefly, that there are any amount of channels for the enfranchisement, and more than the enfranchisement, of the modern woman, without inflicting the process, in a necessarily concentrated and obtrusive fashion, upon the medical and academic bodies. “That license which is acknowledged to be the equipment of modern woman, and which is gradually demolishing the barriers of sex preservation, and producing the type of girl for whom the appellation of ‘debutante’ is somewhat confusing, has sought,” he said, “a further expression in the mixed training alongside men in the modern hospitals, in what may be termed the veritable ‘no man’s land’ of sex warfare. In my opinion, when mixed, it is certainly ‘no woman’s land’.”

“I personally think,” concluded Dr. Johnston, “that the ,average male student is very much more sensitive about these matters than the female students, who find in the pursuit of medical studies ‘pastures new,’ and even more attractive and interesting than the pursuit of the modern novel,” “Storm in a Teacup.” “Tn my opinion the whole, thing is just a storm in a teacup, and I don’t think there will be any such objection ever raised in New Zealand,” said Dr. Agnes Bennett, with a smile, when she was interviewed. “London is a wealthy (*nd conservative city, and can afford to have its whims, and this is only one of London’s latest whims, after all.” Continuing, Dr. Bennett said that New Zealand could not afford to have two training schools (one for men and one for women), and, as far as she knew, there was no reason why the training should not be mixed. During the war women went into the London hospitals, because they could not get men. Now, however, it seemed that they were not wanted, because there were plenty of young men about again. Whether women were successful as doctors or not would be left to the public to judge. The public seemed to want them, and that was all about it. If one took research work as an indication of women’s success at medicine, then it seemed that they had been very successful indeed. In London Dame Janet Campbell, M.D., was head of the Department of Maternity and Child Health. in the Health, Ministry, while manv important positions were held bv other women doctors in various parts of the world. It was absurcl for the men to blame the women students for distracting their studies, because if their attention was to be distracted, then the nurses would distract them all the same. If male medical students thought more of afternoon teas and parties than they did of their work, then they could waste, their time with nurses and others, without wasting it with women students. As there were more nurses in the hospitals than women students, the male student could play around, if he wished to play around, with a nurse just as easily as he could with a graduate.” “Decidedly Disconcerting.” Dr. Hughes Steele said that although he could not see any real or valid reason why mixed medical training should not be allowed in the hospitals, he imagined that it would be decidedly disconcerting. In his own case he did not have to undergo the experiment, so he could not speak from personal experience. In regard to nurses and medical men, the comparison drawn was not quite accurate, as the nurses performed duties for female patients, which the medical man could scarcely perform. The doctor would also perform duties on the male patient which the nurses could scarcely do. “The Nurse and the Male Student.” Dr. Ada Paterson, of the Health Department, said that if the male student was distracted by the female, student at Home then such was certainly not the. case in New Zealand. In Dunedin they worked well together and the young men would either laugh or bt very annoyed indeed if told that women students were drawing their attention away from athletics. Dr. Paterson thought the decision to ban furth®r women students was a most unfair one. Women had proved their worth in medicine and their rights were now, it seemed, to a certain extent, being '.-.ken away. Of course, they had the King’s Free Hospital, where they could train apart from the male, but that should not prevent others from entering the public hospitals. She did not think that any objection would be rais ed in New Zealand, -although if the girls could train apart from the males and have their own place, it would be all the better. This would cost a dot of money. Just as much exception could be taken to nurses in hospitals as to lady students, because surely the nurses would, have as much chance of distracting the studies of the male as the lady student would have. The whole thing seemed foolish, and it was quite clear that the views given in London for banning tile women were not the real reason at all. ,