Medical Knowledge, Medical Education, and the Career Choices of Women Doctors C.1860–1920: An Edinburgh Case Study

Abstract

This chapter explores the inequalities and restrictions faced by women as they entered the medical profession in the United Kingdom. A case study in the first hospital in the United Kingdom to be founded and run by women, the Edinburgh Hospital for Women and Children, it demonstrates the importance of history for understanding women doctor’s early career choices and opportunities. The chapter begins with an outline of nineteenth-century notions of feminine propriety. It considers how middle-class women sought to subvert these restrictions and gain an active role in public life, and explores how this impacted upon arguments in favour of medical women. It reveals the significance of the changing nature of medical knowledge in this period, and considers how this contributed to the emergence of two distinct specialisms, both of which became the preserve of women doctors: maternal welfare schemes in the 1900s, and the treatment of VD in the inter-war period. The chapter concludes with its contribution to this edited collection.

Citation

Thomson, E. (2015), "Medical Knowledge, Medical Education, and the Career Choices of Women Doctors C.1860–1920: An Edinburgh Case Study", Gender, Careers and Inequalities in Medicine and Medical Education: International Perspectives (International Perspectives on Equality, Diversity and Inclusion, Vol. 2), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 15-41. https://doi.org/10.1108/S2051-233320150000002002