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Newspaper article on Margaret Henderson - Young Doctor Returns
| THE WEST AUSTRALIAN, THURSDAY, DECEMBER 15, 1938. | ||
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Woman 's Realm YOUNG DOCTOR RETURNS. Miss M. Henderson's Success. DR. Margaret Henderson returned to her home in Perth by the West- land express yesterday morning after completing her medical course at Mel- bourne University. After winning the modern languages exhibition from the Presbyterian Ladies' College, she then be- gan her course at the University of West- ern Australia and later shared three ex- hibitions in anatomy, physiology and pathology in Melbourne. She concluded her course in distinguished fashion this year by sharing the Douglas Stephens Prize for Diseases of Children with Dr. Karl Georgeff, shortly to be a resident doctor at Perth Hospital, sharing the Heaney Scholarship in surgery with first class honours and also gaining honours in medicine and gynaecology with third place among this year's graduates. Asked whether women students were handicapped in any way on account of their sex, Dr. Henderson replied in the negative, saying that they were treated on a par with the men students and given equal chances. About 10 per cent of the medical students were women and taking the results on the whole, women were more successful than men. Most women doctors, Dr. Henderson said, did not en- counter any prejudice where sex was con- cerned until after they had started in general practice. In the larger public hospitals, however, no discrimination whatever was being made where the em- ployment of men and women was con- cerned. There was no reason why a prejudice should exist, Dr. Henderson maintained, and the fact that a student was a woman should in no way be a bar to her suc- cess in almost any sphere of medicine, providing that her physical and mental capabilities were up to the standard re- quired for men. Dr. Henderson consid- ered that in the next 20 years or so, it was probable that the bulk of gynaecologlcal and obsteric work would fall into the hands of women doctors. Although not what one might term an ultra-feminist, Dr. Henderson does main- tain that if university graduates marry, the right should not be denied them to continue with their jobs If they so de- sire. "I think that if the jobs are not retained, assets which the State cannot afford to lose are being wasted," she said. "In any case, it costs the State a cer- tain amount for the course, as the fees do not cover all expenses, and the suc- cessful student is left with more or less of a liability which he or she should use to the best of advantage." Every gradu- ate, Dr. Henderson said, should be con- scious of her responsibility to the com- munity. When a woman married and continued her job, she often created em- ployment for other people and usually employed domestic workers in her own home to do work for, which she herself had not been trained and was not suited. Dr. Henderson has as yet made no de- finite decisions regarding her future. She hopes to return to Melbourne in February in order to gain experience. She finds children's work most attractive and also considers pathology as a suitable field for women. There were several successful women pathologists in Melbourne, she said, foremost among them being Dr. Hilda Gardiner, haematologist at the Melbourne Hospital. Open the article on the Trove web site. |
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