SERVICES FOR MEDICINE

Taranaki Daily News, 4 June 1935, Page 7

SERVICES FOR MEDICINE

DR. DORIS GORDON, 0.8. E. OBSTETRICAL WORK RECOGNISED. SUCCESS DESPITE BIG HANDICAP. CAREER OF STRATFORD WOMAN. . For her keen insight into the faults and requirements of medical work. in New Zealand, particularly in connection with the maternity and infant welfare aspect, and her capable and untiring efforts for the improvement of obstetrical science in the country, Dr. Doris Gordon, Stratford, has earned an enviable reputation not only throughout the Dominion, but almost throughout the Empire. The recognition of her work sho-wn by the award of Officer of the Order o’f the British Empire is merely a reflection of the high honour already paid her by prominent societies in New Zealand and in England. Dr. Gordon’s education, meagre as it was by the accepted standard, can only emphasise her unusual capabilities and strength of purpose. Born in Victoria, Australia, she came to New Zealand in the ’nineties as Miss Jolly, the daughter of a bank clerk who later rose to the position of general manager of the National Bank of New Zealand. She received only one year’s uninterrupted tuition at a primary school, her mother having taught her at home. She spent that one year in standard five, She then had nothing more to do with school until she was 18, when she decided to take up medicine as a profession; Seventeen nionths’ work at-the Tapanui District High School followed her passing of the proficiency examination, and at the end of that time she matriculated and went to the medical school at Dunedin. Here she had an uphill fight for two years in keeping up io the required standard because of the many big gaps in her early education, but during her last few years at the college she distinguished herself, gaining very high honours. Her M.B. and ChJB. degrees were completed at Otago University in 1915. ' VALUABLE EXPERIENCE. Valuable experience was gained in the Duriedin hospital towards the end of the war, where in common with most “home” hospitals at the time the institution was very much understaffed. Her first visit to Taranaki was made during the influenza e'pidemiq, when she relieved Dr. Pagett at Stratford. In 1917 she married Dr. W. P. P. Gordon, and commenced general practice at- Stratford. Dr. Gordon had always been specially interested in maternity work, and, realising the urgent need of improvements in that connection in New Zealand. she went to Edinburgh in 1925 With her husband with the express purpose of obtaining a higher degree in obstetrics. She was the first woman in New Zealand and Australia to secure a fellowship of the Royal College of Surgeons.. The next step was a tour of Europe to investigate the conditions of women’s life and make a study of the obstetrical cliniqtj.es at Vienna and in Holland. On her return to New Zealand in 1926 she immediately moved for the formation of the New Zealand Obstetrical Society which it was hoped would do for New Zealand what the various gynaecological and obstetrical societies were doing in Great Britain, and in 1927 her schemes bore • fruit; A chance meeting with Mr. Victor Banriey, the. eminent English obstetrician, in England led to his visit to New Zealand in 1928, and his influence paved the way for the obstetrical endowment, appeal in 1930. This appeal, promoted and organised by,Dr. Gordon, realized £31,750, and the establishment of a chair of obstetrics at the medical schiol at Dunedin. Last year Dr. Gordon represented the New Zealand society on a visit to Australia on obstetrical business, and the outcome Was the institution of a system of exchange of nurses between a big women’s hospital at Melbourne with obstetrical sisters Of equal. standing in some of the main obstetrical hospitals in New Zealand. The idea- was at once acclaimed as an important Step in the interests of maternity welfare in New Zealand.

Acknowledgment of Dr. Gordon’s work came from a very high source two years ago, when she was made, a foundation member of the recently established British College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, London.