How I Became a Lady Doctor.

Otago Witness, Issue 2856, 9 December 1908, Page 73

How I Became a Lady Doctor.

It would be jedious to speak in detail of the work of each year. But it was in my fourth and fifth years that I really became a hospital student, and spent as much /ime as possible in jthe/wards of the Royal'Free Hospital, Gray's Inn road, to which the school is attached. Then it was "that I felt the greatest strain on my health.To take only one example, while going the rounds with the doctor there is continuous standing: if engaged in helping, him, fatigue may be forgotten, if not, th«j prolonged standing is a great strain. % know that some etodexrts seemed to fee!) nothings a continuous fever and "rush possessed them — they -fled from one occupy, tio'n to another throughout the day, an^ would frequently go -off to an operation oi/-.

to an accident just brought in unless their work in the wards was mare engrossing or more instructive.

Of course I dreaded my first operation, but after I heard from a surgeon that in his experience men students were more apt to become faint than women, I plucked up my heart. Often a girl is go afraid she may disgrace herself that she works herself into a very state of mind. Some, however, never seem to mind the ordeal at all ; wliile here and there a few new hands faint, or retire, looking very pale. I. however, received some very kind advice beforehand, and accordingly I got through pretty well. "Do not," said my friend, " choose too good a place for seeing what is happening, for, even when at the Wk, the great neat of the theatre, the smell of chloroform, the rattle of the instruments, and the groaning of the patients are sometimes enough to make you feel very uncomfortable." But once the nervous dread was overcome, I grew most eager to learn all I could of surgery.. There was electric communication between the hospital and the boarding-house, and great was the excitement when the signal sounded and the seniors hurried over to the operating theatre. Each student, if she profited by her opportunities, was also made practically acquainted with the methods of conducting post-mortem examinations, and I learned all I could in this direction. At the London Fever Hospital I received instruction in fevers, and in lunacy at one of the hospital asylums under the London County Council, where we had some amusing experiences among the patients, many of whom seemed so sane that to a nonmedical eye it was not easy to detect their insanity. — N. Murrell Marris in the Girl's Own Paper.