Doris Clifton Gordon

Doris Clifton Gordon (10 July 1890 – 9 July 1956) was a New Zealand doctor, obstetrician, university lecturer and women's health reformer. She was known as 'Dr Doris', famous for her work in rural general practice, for raising the status of obstetrics, improving obstetrics education of medical students and doctors, and working for the welfare of mothers and children.

Early life Doris Clifton Jolly was born in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia on 10 July 1890 emigrating with her family to New Zealand in 1894. The family lived in Wellington and Tapanui where she attended Tapanui High School. She received little primary school education and completed her secondary education in just over one year after deciding to become a medical missionary. She entered medical school at the University of Otago in 1911, graduating in 1916.

Career On graduation Gordon became a house surgeon at Dunedin Hospital. In 1917 she lectured at the University of Otago, qualified with a Diploma in Public Health and married fellow medical graduate William (Bill) Patteson Pollock Gordon. She decided early in her career to devote herself to country practice. She became known as 'Dr Doris', synonymous with 'back blocks' (i.e. rural) practice, later publishing two volumes of her autobiography, Backblocks baby-doctor and Doctor down under.

Gordon was devoted to midwifery care, in particular safe, pain free childbirth. She pioneered anaesthesia in childbirth or 'twilight sleep' using morphine and scopolamine, as well as Caesarian sections. She gained an MD in 1924 with her thesis entitled Scopolamine – Morphine Narcosis in Childbirth. The Society promoted its aims for better recognition of the practice of obstetrics through meetings, lecture tours, scholarships and liaison with the Department of Health. In 1938 the Queen Mary Hospital in Dunedin opened providing obstetrical training for medical students. Gordon commenced lobbying for better training at the Royal College of Obstetrics and Gynaecology Meeting in London in 1939 by enlisting support from expatriates John Stallworthy, Robert Hawksworth and Robert Macintosh. Arguments for postgraduate training and a dedicated hospital included the inability of Queen Mary Hospital to train undergraduates as well as postgraduates, the need to provide training in New Zealand because of the war and to attract overseas trained specialists back to the country. She was the only woman to receive this honour and the only recipient in the Southern Hemisphere.

Personal life Doris and Bill Gordon had one daughter and three sons. Their daughter trained as a nurse, two sons Ross Gordon and Graham Gordon became doctors, and their other son Peter Gordon was a politician and cabinet minister. opposing indiscriminate contraception and abortion, though Bennett later distanced himself from the publication. The inaugural lecture in 1915 was a eulogy to Gordon delivered by Professor Ron Jones. Margaret Sparrow reiterated her view that while Gordon had achieved much for the advancement of maternity services her legacy is flawed and that by opposing contraception and safe legal abortion she had held back advances made to women in England, Europe and America.

A street in the Wellington suburb of Crofton Downs is named Doris Gordon Crescent to commemorate Gordon's residence near Crofton Downs when her family first arrived in Wellington.

Selected publications

'Further problems of obstetrics.' New Zealand Medical Journal, Vol. 25, p.267-287. (1926) 'Obstetrical hospital, history of the movement' NZ Countrywoman, 1 no. 9.(20 Jan 1934) 'Modern problems in maternal welfare in New Zealand, Part II: the abortion evil'. New Zealand Nursing Journal (15 January 1937) Backblocks baby doctor (1955) Doctor down under (1958) - published posthumously