Gladys Mary Wauchope (1889–1966): Brighton physician and second female medical student at the London Hospital Medical College

Abstract

Gladys Mary Wauchope was a pioneering woman physician and general practitioner in London and Brighton. Descended from an ancient Scottish family, she was the second female medical student at the London Hospital Medical College after Elizabeth Garrett Anderson, enrolling during the brief period from 1918 to 1928 in which women were permitted to study medicine in mainstream London medical schools due to shortages of doctors caused by the First World War. Unperturbed by opposition to her gender from male colleagues, she was initially house physician on the firm of Sir Robert Hutchison at ‘the London’, and went on to hold an array of posts in large London hospitals at a time when finding such work was challenging for women doctors. She settled in Hove as a general practitioner in 1924, later becoming a consultant physician at several major Brighton hospitals. Made only the eighth female fellow of the Royal College of Physicians, she also set up the first diabetic clinic in Sussex and Kent. Gladys authored several books, including her autobiography ‘The Story of a Woman Physician’, which documents life through two world wars and the introduction of the National Health Service, whilst keenly observing the changing landscape of medicine and its place in society.