Madam, - Margaret Ann Bulkley, a Cork woman, was the first female to qualify as a doctor - in Edinburgh in 1812.
She qualified as Dr James Barry, the name of her uncle, the renowned Irish painter. She carved her name into history both for this "deception" and also for carrying out the first Caesarean section in Africa, saving the life of mother and baby.
Her gender only became obvious after her death, though some proclaimed to have known all along because of her diminutive size, sandy curls and squeaky voice.
Against all the odds she advanced her career and was an advocate, as a Royal Navy surgeon, for better sanitation and diet for soldiers, lepers and prisoners.
Today, 70 per cent of newly qualified Irish doctors are female. Are women doctors still not fully accepted in 2008? Dr Deirdre Collins (July 10th) is right to stress the commitment shown by female doctors to continuity of care in general practice. In my experience they carry a large burden of work in general practice where the term "part-time work" is a euphemism.
Child-rearing has played a part in shaping the way women advance their careers in general practice. This has benefited male doctors also, in that they can now feel comfortable about reducing their hours as their circumstances dictate.
Dr Collins rightly remembers the long hours and stress endured by our predecessors and by some of the 40 per cent of GPs who are now hoping to retire in the next eight years. Family life and doctors' health did suffer severely as a result of being continually on call. Doctors' families will attest to this.
The crisis in medical manpower today is not about gender issues but about the fact that there are too few doctors (2,700) to provide GP care to 4.5 million people, 24 hours a day, seven days a week . When the GP surgery closes at 6pm, these same GPs are expected to take themselves, with their toothbrush, to some other centre and work further shifts. No male or female doctor goes gladly at 3am on a house visit, with no sleep, having worked the previous day and knowing they will also work for some part of the following day. Apart from the stress of this situation, is it a safe practice?
The UK, which has much higher doctor-patient ratios, allows contracted GPs to opt out of this onerous commitment for out of hours work. Why not here? Precisely because we have a shrinking number of doctors to deal with ever-increasing workloads. This will hardly encourage our older GPs to remain at work or female doctors to apply for full-time work once their families are reared.
The job description for all doctors will have to change and the numbers in training will need to increase. In the meantime, hats off to Margaret Ann Bulkley and to all the female doctors since then who have changed the face of medicine forever for the benefit of us all.- Yours, etc,
Dr DANIEL McGINLEY, Moville, Co Donegal.