Women in medicine | |
In practice. The lives of New Zealand women doctors in the 21st century. Rosy Fenwicke. Auckland: Random House, 2004 (xvi + 351 pp). ISBN 1 86941 620 1. |
Rosy Fenwicke graduated
in New Zealand in the late seventies and has a wide-ranging background in general practice, women’s health, family planning, an abortion clinic, obstetrics, and the assessment of sexual abuse claims. She holds a diploma in occupational medicine and is an assessor for the Accident Compensation Corporation New Zealand. She has two children and describes the powerful effect that her childhood and marriage has had on her medical career. Her personal and professional experiences make her well qualified for this undertaking. The book reviews the medical training of female medical students in the mid-seventies and their present medical work in New Zealand. It depicts how they combine their professional and personal lives and outlines the changes that have occurred as a result of their participating in a male-dominated profession. The book is especially topical considering the increasing numbers of women entering medicine today. The author also relates the experiences of women physicians in women’s health, endocrinology, obstetrics, gynaecology, public health and paediatrics. Participants include a general practitioner (a former head of the Royal New Zealand College of General Practitioners), surgeons both general and orthopaedic, a pathologist, sports physician, a director of the Maori Public Health Unit and a manager of primary care for a district health board. This reviewer (an Australian medical graduate of the seventies with clinical and academic experience) empathises strongly with the experiences described in this book that bridge the gap of contemporary knowledge of women in medicine. The experiences described by the medical women highlight a prevailing and continuing masculine culture and provide a focus for further consideration. Both the style and content of the book are reader-friendly and the purchase of this book represents good value for money. Margaret R Kilmartin
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