Launch of new book on women in Irish medicine

Earlier in April Dr Laura Kelly published the first comprehensive history of Irish women in medicine in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. Based on her PhD on the subject from NUI Galway, Irish Women in medicine, c.1880s-1920s Origins, education and careers is an engaging and informative study of this interesting period of Irish medical history. The work looks at the debates surrounding women's admission to Irish medical schools, the backgrounds of the early female medical students, their medical education and their subsequent careers. The study combines scholarly research, statistical data and the individual stories of early female medics, to give both the general and the personal experience.

One of the areas covered by this new work is the difference in the attitudes of Irish medical schools to those in England and Scotland, with the Irish Schools showing a much more open minded attitude to the admission of women. In 1876 the British government gave in to the mounting pressure to allow women to qualify as doctors, and passed the Enabling Act. This act allowed the medical licensing bodes to allow candidates holding degrees from foreign universities to sit their examinations and, if successful, to be recognised as a registered medical practitioner. As women could study medicine at some foreign universities, but not British ones, this opened the way for women to enter the medical profession in Britain. RCPI was the first medical licensing body in the British Isles to take advantage of the Enabling Act and allow women to sit their exams. Sophia Jex-Blake, one of the leading figures in the campaign to allow women to practice as doctors, described the decision by RCPI as 'the turning point in the whole struggle'.

Resident medical staff of Sir Patrick Dun's Hospital, 1918-1919