The Royal Free Hospital, where women take their training as students, has now two women on its staff in the department for gynaecology.  It has also a woman anaesthetist, and some of the minor posts, such as clinical assistant to the outpatients, pathologist, etc., are open to them.  All the physicians, the surgeons, and the assistant physicians and surgeons are, however, men.

Of the hospitals for special ailments in London, none so far admits women to the staff, and it has only recently become possible for them even to form part of the medical audience at the outpatients’ department at some of these special hospitals.

No London Hospital for Diseases of Women
and Midwifery (except that of Dr M’Call),
or for Diseases of Children (except one recently
started by women),
or for Diseases of the Eye,
or for Diseases of the Ear, Nose and Throat,
or for Diseases of the Nervous System,
admits women to its staff, although several of them allow women to take appointments as clinical assistants, pathologists, anaesthetists, and other minor posts.  Their admission to the full staff is, perhaps, merely a question of time, and of the naturally slow movement of the British mind towards admitting women to positions of responsibility.

There has, however, been of late years a tendency on the part of medical women themselves to take this matter into their own hands, and new women’s hospitals are being started about London where the staff is exclusively composed of women.

(b) If, on the other hand, the newly qualified doctor decides to become a general practitioner, her course is much simpler.  She takes such posts as are available, which she thinks will aid her general knowledge of medicine.  Then she selects a neighbourhood, puts up a plate, and waits.

This course also involves delayed earning capacity, as she must be prepared to face outlay for several years without much return.  During this time she generally augments the income which she gets from her private practice by other part-time paid work, notably by giving lectures in first aid, etc., by school inspection, where part-time officers are appointed, and other such work.  She also generally does a certain amount of voluntary work on that most pernicious system of giving her services in order to get known.  It is in this way that doctors are everywhere so terribly exploited.  When they are all so busy doing work which they think will bring them into the public view, this becomes of no particular use to any of them, and the only people who benefit, and at the same time scoff, are the members of the general public, who become so used to getting the doctor to work for nothing or next to nothing, that it comes as a shock when they have to pay.  It is a healthy sign that the long-suffering doctor is at last beginning to show symptoms of fight, and in the future it may be hoped that doctors, like lawyers, will not be required to give their services free to the community.  It may be true that if a man will not work neither shall he eat, but the converse should also be true, that if a man works he should eat, and at present it is not by any means always true of the doctor.