‘A bunch of nonsense’ – don’t expect time off when you’re training
The women were made to sit in the front row, and working alongside a man was strictly forbidden.
This apartheid extended to the lab, where even cadavers couldn’t be shared.
‘‘When we had to work on the human body we all had to work on the same one, all 13 of us,’’ recalls Dr Jennifer Wilson, now 82.
‘‘We couldn’t mix with the men, and you had to work twice as hard as a man to be noticed.’’
Wilson, a pioneering gynaecologist, is one of hundreds of female graduates of Otago Medical School who are having their experiences documented for the Early Medical Women project.
Researchers hope to create an online repository of biographies of the women, who graduated from 1896 to 1968, providing a historical resource and inspiration for young doctors.
Wilson’s niece, Auckland University professor of obstetrics and gynaecology Cindy Farquhar, instigated the project after her mother Meredith Gunn, also a doctor, died two years ago.
‘‘I had heard her stories of what going through medical school in the 1940s was like, and I thought ‘Wouldn’t it be great to record them all’?’’ Farquhar says.
‘‘Our generation have benefited hugely from the ethics of those early women doctors.
‘‘We kind of moan about how difficult it is in a male-dominated field, and it’s not perfect, but they experienced discrimination we can’t even imagine.’’
As junior doctors around the country prepare for strike action (‘‘I think it’s a bunch of nonsense, they’re in training. Of course you can’t have time off’’), Wilson remembers her own early days in the field with a wry grin.
Being one of 13 women in a class of 120 was ‘‘awful,’’ and this segregation was mirrored in the workplace. As the first woman to win an overseas fellowship after graduating in 1957, Wilson had to appeal to the head of England’s Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists to help her find employment.
Back in Auckland, and with two young children, Wilson opened her own specialist gynaecological practice, working mainly in cervical cancer diagnosis and treatment. ‘‘I loved it, it was a great field. I miss it, and I miss my patients. I retired at 74, and that was too early for me.’’
Medicine now runs in Wilson’s family. Her mother, a pro-choice activist, worked as a schoolteacher in Te Kuiti to put Wilson and her sister Meredith through medical school.
Meredith’s daughter is Farquhar, while her granddaughter is about to graduate medical school. To Wilson, this is another sign women’s rights are improving.
‘‘That’s why I became a doctor, and I’m an activist underneath it all,’’ Wilson grins. ‘‘If you scratch me I’m an activist, even if I look a bit posh now.’’
Do you know a woman who graduated from the University of Otago medical school before 1968? Email earlymedwomen@auckland.ac.nz to find out how to participate.