The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1895-03-24
WOMEN WHO WILL BE DOCTORS.
The Busy Life Led by Medical Stu
dents-Flrst Experiences.
Philadainhia Press

L hiHduSlpuld IEcSS.
1t is a strange and altogether new exis-
tence into which these young women come
when they enter upon their four years of
trial in the clinic, the. hospital, the dis
Secting and the lecture rooms. Not one in
a score has ever received the slightest prep
arative process for the trying scenes that
VIII be part OF every day. They come from
collegeS-Wellesley, Vassar or Bryn Mawr,
perhaps-or from homes where they have
lived the sheltered lives of all girls, sur
rounded by the protecting barriers which
society and convention throw around we'll
bred and carefully nurtured young women.
They have an enthusiasm for the art of
healing, without knowing much about its
rocky paths and the trials which must be-
set a sex whose instructive dread of a mouse
is proverbial-a life for which men must
undergo a nerve-trying hardening process.
There must be this enthusiastic devotion
In the woman student to a greater degree
than in men, or they cannot stand the
strain of the preparation, and drop out.
Some of them do. AS a class they are not
blue stockings, nor are they masculine and
shockingly independent. Some are striking
ly pretty, some are plain, but, with few ex-
ceptfons. they are simply whole-souled, in
tellectual young women, whose charms of
femihinity are not married by the study of
a profession which old-fashioned ideas class
as more fitting to be followed by the stern
err sex.
There is small time for play in their busy
lives. The record of an average days oc-
cupation would stagger the easy-going un-
d~ergraduate of Yale or Harvard, but the
social side of their existence holds much
that is pleasant, although these young
oAi0 Will ldlh StlO dhy Lille dllu III
the time, and medical jokes, unintelligible
to the untutored listener, fly across the
chatting dish in a cosy room of an evening,
the Welsh rarebit shudder in his steaming
lair.
Four or five students live in a house
usually within a few squares of the col
lege, and in the late hours when therapeu-
tics and ophthalmology ct al. have been
cense of chocolate, the seductive aroma of
lobster a la Neuburg or steaming oysters
rary rendezvous of the crowd" in the
house. with the chat and laughter that is
refreshing to hear after a long day and
evening of uninterrupted grind" 1t seems
paradoxical to find that mirth can hold
sway when there is a skeleton in every
closet. Every freshman purchases for her
grim and grinning silent partner" as these
CHASTITY pieces of bric-a-brac are euphem-
corner for four years. 1t may be imagined
that many a timid freshman hides her head
under the bed clothes for many nights
through her first term. and Grapes her
terrifying sentinel with trembling fingers in
the night watches unless some heartless
and hardened senior chaffs the hedgeling
into a show of bravery and affected nom
chalance.
One Of these freshmen was telling her
mates, the other day, and it is not hard
to suppose that her woes of mind have
been duplicated many times.
You know, 1 did not enter until more
than a month after the term began, and
the class was way ahead of me-. 1 got
to Philadelphia one rainy, dismal morning
In November and showed myself at the coll
lege that afternoon. I'd come clear from
my home in San Francisco, and didn't know
a soul within a thousand miles of here.
Homesick was no name for 1t. They sent
me up to the dissecting room first thing,
when I hadn't a bit of experience like the
rest of the girls to get my nerves ready for
1t. Never haa seen anything of the kind
in my life, and 1 walked in to find a lot of
girls in old aprons around the demonstra-
tor, and all of them dreadfully busy with
an awful object on a table. There were
those fearful things stretched on tablets all
around the room, and the air was-well,
close. The women had forceps and shin
ing weapons, and were as calmly picking
were doing fancy work. Poor little scared
me was given an arm to pick at in the way
the demonstration pointed out. 1t was aw-
full. Once my hand slipped and touched the
flesh that was left. and / burst out crying,
and cried for goodness knows how long.
/ cried every time l went in that room for
a week. 1 washed my hands seven times
tired out"
at the expense of the narrator of this sad
tale, and a blonde senior who wore glasses
remarked in a retrospective tone:
My first clinic is as vivid in my memory
as on that great day, three years and more
ago. OF course j sat way up on the back
seat, in the angels row. with the other
freshmen. The operating table and the piles
of baIdages, and the instrument cases, and
the pans and pots of antiseptic fluid, and
arena looked pretty formidable. but / felt
very brave, and was bound not to disgrace
myself by co1lapsing or doing something
foolish.
when the nurses and the doctors put on
their white robes. like priestesses getting
ready for a sacrifice. and the patient was
brought in, with napkins and towels on her
face, and the smell of them got thick in
the air, I'll confess I wasn't quite SO COM
Portable. The patient was a colored woman
who had fallen On q stove, and as a result
had no eyelids or nose. In a previous oper-
alton a new eyelid had been made by aking
a flap from her face, and this day the OPP
Grating surgeon was going to make her a
new nose by cutting a flap of skin from the
forehead and folding it down and stitching
it where her nose used to be. You all know
the operation
sOf course" was chorused in various
keys. and the blonde senior continued.
TT seems absurd now, I know, but when
the blood began to flow and the woman
choked with that wreck of a face, I couldn't
stand it, and bolted for outdoors and walked
till lunch time to quiet my shattered nerves
It was a simple operation, too. and al the
girls in the upper class sat and looked
rather bored, as though they wanted TO see
something really worth their while
s.Buf y had my revenge . couple of weeks
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