We had a good turn-out for the February lunch, enjoying a meal of chicken with smoked paprika and garlic marinade, sweet potato with orange and herbs & broccoli, followed by a red-berry cheesecake. After the lunch, and before the speaker, there were two items of Club business: a brief extraordinary general meeting to vote on an issue relating to a proposed Club constitution; and the presentation of the Club’s annual accounts for 2021, which were duly approved.
Our Speaker was Ian Porter who gave a talk about three pioneers in medicine as a profession for women in the nineteenth century: Margaret Ann Bulkley, who disguised herself as a man, Dr James Barry, to become a successful surgeon In the British Army; Elizabeth Blackwell who was the first woman to receive a medical degree in the United States before eventually settling in Britain to promote education for women in medicine; and, the main subject of his talk, Elizabeth Garrett Anderson who was the first woman to qualify in Britain as a physician and surgeon, and who founded the first hospital staffed by women.
John Gilbert
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