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WOMEN DOCTORS AND THE WAR

5 December 1914

SIR,—AMONG THE MOST urgent national necessities of the moment is an ample supply of experienced, and well-trained doctors—and there is a very marked shortage. Many of our best physicians and surgeons have already gone to the front and as their ranks are thinned by the inevitable wastage of war many more are prepared to follow.

To some extent medical women are already filling the vacancies thus caused at hospitals and other institutions, and are proving themselves equal to their professional and administrative duties. Partly in consequence of the present emergency it has become apparent that the demand for the services of medical women is greatly in excess of the supply. In addition to this the principal missionary societies are suffering from the impossibility of obtaining sufficient medical women to staff their hospitals and dispensaries, and a similar difficulty exists at home in the case of various departments of the public service.

May we not hope that when this urgent demand for women doctors is realized by the public many women of good birth, education, and ability will be desirous of entering the medical profession? It is certain that all such women cannot, and do not, expect to marry, and that in default of this most natural and desirable condition of life some women must seek other spheres of usefulness. From an experience of medical life now verging on 40 years, I venture to think that no career could offer greater happiness and satisfaction to a woman, nor greater opportunities of practical usefulness, than medicine. I should like to point out that women medical students need not of necessity be very young. The more mature woman has certain great qualifications for the task; her verbal memory may not be so strong as that of her juniors, but her trained mind, experience of life, and general savoir faire are of considerable service to her as a student and still more as a practitioner.

That women are capable of rendering efficient professional aid is proved by the fact that at the present time several hospitals officered entirely by women are at work in the theatre of war, and that the services of these medical women are much appreciated by their professional brethren and by their patients.

I am, Sir, faithfully yours,

MARY SCHARLIEB