Harriet Wheelock / Friday 6 March 2020 Fellows Friday & International Women's Day - Dr Jane Waterston This week Fellows Friday falls on the same day as the Institute of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists Spring Meeting. This year the event marks International Women’s Day, taking place on 8 March, with a special session focused on women’s health in marginalised communities. Our Fellow’s Friday pick reflects the theme of this year’s International Women’s Day, Each for Equal, in our choice of indefatigable Dr Jane Waterston. On 11 February 1924 Dr Kirkpatrick, Registrar of RCPI, received a letter regarding an ‘old and very much respected lady doctor’ in South Africa who ‘wants the Fellowship [of the College] before she dies – she is now 86 – and works a good six hours a day.’ The lady in question was Dr Jane Waterston, the first female doctor in South Africa and one of the first female doctors to qualify in the British Isles. Dr Jane Waterston Jane Waterston was born in Scotland in 1845, influenced by her nurse she decided she wished to be a missionary and travelled to Cape Town in 1866 with the Ladies Foreign Mission Committee. Aged just 21 she was charged with establishing the first school for local girls at the Lovedale Missionary Institute. She was very successful with the school and was given the Kafir name Noqakata (Mother of Activity). Lovedale Missionary Institute In 1873 Waterston returned to Britain with the aim of studying medicine, then no easy feat for a woman. She entered the London School of Medicine for Women and in 1879 took the exam for the Licentiate of the King and Queen’s (now Royal) College of Physicians of Ireland. It was then the only registrable medical qualification in the British Isles open to women. Following qualification, she returned to South Africa as the first female medical practitioner to work there. ‘Dr Jane’, as she was known, spent the rest of her life in South Africa and devoted herself to the care of the underprivileged parts of the Cape Town population. She established a free dispensary in Cape Town to provide healthcare and in 1888 developed a scheme to train midwives and nurses. At the outbreak of the second Boer War in 1899 she was prominent in providing assistance to refugees and would later lead an investigation into the conditions in the concentration camps. She also held a number of government appointments such as advisor to the Valkenberg Mental Hospital, the Old Somerset Hospital and the leprosy hospital at Robben Island. In 1924 the only thing preventing Dr Waterston from becoming a Fellow was the need for her to be nominated by two Fellows of the College who knew her. There were no College Fellows in South Africa at the time. On receipt of the letter expressing Dr Waterston’s wish, Dr Kirkpatrick asked the College Council to waive this requirement and accept two testimonials from South African medical men who knew Dr Waterston. These letters are preserved in the archives and show the high esteem in which she was held – ‘any distinction granted to Dr Waterston would be most heartily received out here’, ‘there is no name in the profession which is more widely respected than hers.’ On 18 October 1925 Dr Jane Waterston became the second female Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians of Ireland. Dr Jane Waterston receiving an honorary degree A firm believer in open-air exercise she often undertook long journeys to visit patients on foot, and would swim in the sea at Muizenberg in the early morning, summer and winter alike. She continued this active life and her medical practice up until a few months before her death. Dr Jane Waterston died on 7 November 1932 and was widely celebrated in the newspapers on her death for her untiring devotion to her patients, and as ‘the Empire’s oldest women doctor.’