One of LHSA’s first readers of 2013 has been researching the
life of Dr Isabel Venters, a pioneer of medical education and training for
women, using the rich resources of the Bruntsfield Hospital collection. Dr
Venters studied medicine at the Surgeons’ Square School founded by Sophia
Jex-Blake, became a Licentiate of the Royal College of Physicians in 1894, and
was only the sixth woman to graduate M.B. C.M. from the University of
Edinburgh, doing so in 1897. She completed her practical instruction at Leith
Hospital in the days before the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh allowed women to
receive it.
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| Dr Isabel Venters |
Dr Venters became one of the first residents of the Grove Street
Dispensary, the forerunner of Bruntsfield Hospital (opened in 1899), and
remained its surgeon for almost 40 years. She was the Hospital’s only surgeon during
WW1 (at a time when it had 40 beds) and still found time and energy to operate her
own practice, and a dispensary for poorer women and children in the Canongate. She
remained a trustee of the Hospital throughout, always attending executive
meetings besides her medical work. She firmly believed in Bruntsfield’s mission:
“a place where women in need might find help from skilled women doctors and
where young medical women might have training and opportunity”.
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