Blaze e-catalogue - Catalog - Page 78
Jessie
Aspinall
1880-1953
First woman Medical
Resident Officer
Dr Jessie Aspinall’s short career with the
NSW Department of Health blazed a trail for
women to obtain positions as physicians within
public hospitals.
Aspinall received a Bachelor of Medicine and
Master of Surgery, University of Sydney (1906).
She was recommended by the Royal Prince Alfred
Hospital Medical Board for appointment as
Resident Medical Officer. However, the Conjoint
Board—comprising the University of Sydney
Senate and Hospital Board—refused to employ
a woman doctor. Aspinall’s situation gained
wide publicity. The Board changed its mind but
maintained that Aspinall’s appointment ‘not be
taken as a precedent’, and barred her from dealing
with certain ‘sex’ diseases. Aspinall’s five male
colleagues gladly shared consulting rooms and
helped secure hospital accommodation for her.
“She fought brilliantly with the
men students, and it is to the very
leading position she achieved in
her medical examinations that she
owes the enjoyment of being the
first lady doctor to be admitted on
the residential staff of the big public
hospitals of this State.”
‘Distinguished woman doctor’, The World’s News,
20 January 1906, p. 8
Aspinall was appointed Junior House Surgeon,
Hobart General Hospital (1907), and then
Resident Medical Officer, Women’s Hospital,
Crown Street, Sydney (1908). Later that year she
was elected Secretary of the University of Sydney
Senate Appointment Committee. Aspinall married
in 1915 and from that time, the responsibilities
of family overtook her professional career.
Above left
Jessie Aspinall
The Swiss Studios Sydney, n.d., NRS 9873, R2589
health
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