Dr. Louisa Atkins M.D.
Zurich 1867-1872
From London
Louisa was a young window, her husband died in India. She was a friendly, gentle woman with little science and wrote about how discouraged she was by the difficulties of medical study.
1867
Starts school in Zurich alongside Frances
1868
Summer Maria Bokova and Eliza Walker arrive in Zurich
1872
Her extraordinary self-discipline enabled her to finish her degree in 5 years with a thesis on pulmonary gangrene in children.
Louisa Atkins M.D. University of Zurich appointed to Birmingham and Midlands Hospital for Woman
1872
July Louisa Atkins (1842–1924) was controversially employed by the BMHW as the country’s first female House Surgeon.34
In contrast, the Royal Free Hospital (RFH), which exclusively provided training to female medical students from the LSMW, did not appoint a newly qualified woman doctor to a house post until 1901.35 Because Atkins’ diploma was awarded from the University of Zurich, it did not technically meet the specified requirements of the post. Additionally, due to the fact that women were yet to be permitted to sit the examinations of any licensing bodies, Atkins was not fully registered. In spite of this, the hospital’s committee still offered her the position over two male candidates, stating that they had every reason to be satisfied with their decision.36
34Minute Book of the Medical Committee, HC/WH/5/ 1, Birmingham City Archives, Library of Birmingham, 16 July 1872.
35‘Hospital and School News’, London (Royal Free Hospital) School of Medicine for Women Magazine, 19 May 1901, 800. The LSMW became affiliated with the Royal Free Hospital in 1877.
36BMHW Annual Report 1873, HC/WH/1/10/1, BCA.
[The Medical Act of 1858, which sought to standardise medical education, prevented those with European degrees from legally practicing in the UK. ]
1876
The revised Medical Act was passed, which enabled, rather than required, licensing bodies to recognise ‘any qualification for registration granted by such body to all persons without distinction of sex’.49 The first medical body to permit women to take its licensing examinations was the Kings and Queens College of Physicians in Ireland (KQCPI).50 In January 1877, Eliza Walker Dunbar (1845–1924) became the first woman to be licensed by the College.51 Louisa was registered the following year along with Frances
1888
, a heated professional disagreement between Atkins and Garrett Anderson led to Atkins resigning from her position on the staff of the New Hospital for Women (NHW), and as a member of the ARMW.101 Atkins had raised concerns regarding the surgical competency of Garrett Anderson, and when these concerns were not adequately addressed by the hospitals’ management committee, she saw no other option but to leave.102 Having hosted the annual meeting of the ARMW at her home in Hanworth in 1886 and 1887, it was ‘proposed and carried unanimously that next year’s meeting be held, subject to Mrs Atkins [sic] convenience, at the Rectory Cottage Hanwell, on the second Tuesday in June 1888’.103 Following Atkins’ resignation from the NHW in April 1888, the location of the annual meeting was, rather tellingly, changed to the ‘Inns of Court Hotel, Holborn’.104 The resignations of two founding members of the ARMW further demonstrates the discord that existed among the first generation of female medical graduates. As Elston notes, such disagreements between the early medical pioneers reveal a tension between the ideals of professional community, and individualistic conceptions of the role of women doctors.105 For many, Garrett Anderson’s elevated position within the profession was problematic; as the first woman to qualify in Britain, she was, in effect, irreproachable.