MEDICAL WOMEN IN CHINA.

Waipa Post, Volume XIII, Issue 895, 24 January 1920, Page 3

MEDICAL WOMEN IN CHINA.

In the whole of China it may be estimated that there are approximately one hundred and seventy women doctors of recognised standing, states “Stri Dharma,” the official organ of the Women’s Indian Association. About one hundred have been graduated from the Government Medical School at Shanghai, now under the superintendence of Dr. Chang; about fifty have graduated from the Canton [Hospital, and about twenty from smaller colleges in Peking and Soochow. There are some sixteen women doctors practising to-day in Peking, of whom eight are private practitioners and the rest are employed in the various women’s hospitals of the Presbyterian Board, the Methodist and the Anglican Mission.

It seems natural that with, the increase of medical and health work in China women would find a place in the nursing profession, and this is indeed true —hut it is rather astonishing at first glance to find in a country where social openings for women are not as yet so many as men, nor the standard for the two sexes in any way the same, that women doctors are so widely accepted. One reason lies in the broad attitude taken by the various missions on this point, but an even more fundamental cause lies in the demand for women doctors for women patients, and women doctors in China are becoming specialists in the common diseases of women and children.