CHAPTER XXXVIII

Dr. Zakrzewska’s own description of her attitude as a critic—Her judgments on various details of Hospital policy: Against the admission to the Hospital of women students of the Boston University Medical School (that being then a school of homeopathy); On the reciprocal relation of the medical staff and the board of directors of the Hospital; On a question of Hospital discipline; Letter to an ambitious colleague whose feelings have been hurt.

Matters of Hospital policy were continually being referred to her for decision. Before noting details, it will be illuminating to read what she says as to her mental attitude when making criticisms:

If I praise, it is hardly ever the person or the relation in which this person stands to me of which I think—it is simply the praiseworthy thing or deed which I eulogize.

These very same persons may do or say something which, according to my comprehension, is not praiseworthy but the contrary, and I criticize and blame just as strongly as I praised before when many did not see the praiseworthiness until I drew attention to it.

For the praise, I receive thanks, for human nature likes far better to hear agreeable things than disagreeable ones.

For the blame, where I pointed out the fault, I receive double reproach, for human nature likes to defend, it is vexed because its attention has been drawn to the fact of imperfection and its displeasure tends to fall upon the person who points out this imperfection.

I am fully aware that gratitude and warm friendships are easily gained by speaking well of everything and everybody. Hence it is that secondary, yes, even very mediocre, talents receive a certain amount of fame and appreciation by the multitude.

But to a true nature such kind of appreciation is humbling; and that, too, in just such a degree as to him or her, praise or blame, appreciation or censure, are equally sacred. One who is satisfied with the recognition of the few can calmly wait till the multitude find out for themselves how much of the seed sown among them will grow.

Therefore, when I mention names to you, pray do not believe I speak of them because they are either friends or foes to me, or that I wish either to please or to hurt. Both are far from me—I do not care to please, nor do I want to hurt, anybody.

In answer to a proposal in earlier years to admit to the New England Hospital the women students of the Medical Department of the Boston University (then a school of homeopathy), she decided in the negative. In this connection, she says:

It is my opinion that if we do not intend to lower our aims or to descend from the position which we have taken and which we should uphold, we cannot form any connection, through the admission of its students to our Hospital, with a school which holds itself strictly sectarian and which claims a one-sided knowledge—a faith in medicine which has no warrant, and an advancement in science which neither here in America nor abroad is approved by natural scientists, by chemists, or by microscopists. And which in reality possesses no sound foundation other than that which exists in all new ideas, namely, that of experiment. But this experiment is just as permissible to the regular practitioner who is educated on the broadest terms and who has a perfect right to administer any remedy for the restoration of health.

In stating this opinion, to which I have given thoughtful consideration, I regret personally that I thus exclude women of a school with which I agree as to the great principle of equality in education of the sexes.

At one time, there seemed to be in the minds of some of the later members a question as to the reciprocal relation of the medical staff and the board of directors. On this occasion, she writes:

Our Hospital is utterly different from all hospitals carried on by the City or the State or by private individuals and endowments.

In these latter there exists either a need to provide for the helpless who are dependent on the Commonwealth, or benevolent persons wish to provide a charity and so they establish hospitals. In both conditions, the staff of physicians is employed by those who manage the institutions and, consequently, either money or thanks are due to such physicians as serve.

With us, it is entirely different. None of our original directors wanted a hospital; none of them was inspired by charity or had the means to provide such charity. I, the representative of an idea in its earliest evolution—I sought those Directors that they might serve the purpose of carrying out that idea.

They served then and in the future the women physicians connected with the Hospital. They never dictated as to the number of physicians or internes; they never proposed to enlarge the work; this has always been done by the professional staff. We thank them for their generous aid, but they cannot thank us for doing much or little.

Of course, the Directors are the corporate body, and they represent us legally before the public; but they carry out our ideas, not we theirs. They simply stand ready to support the principle of giving to women physicians full opportunity to manifest their skill and judgment.

In this connection it is interesting to refer to a letter regarding another matter, which Mrs. Cheney wrote to Dr. Zakrzewska in 1888. Mrs. Cheney says:

I hope you will not think me ungrateful for your inestimable frank criticism, which has been one of the greatest helps in my life even if I cannot adopt all your suggestions, as I must speak my own language—but I am most thankful for the matter you have supplied.

I never know what to say about my relation to the Hospital work. It is not to me what it is to you.... I accepted it as blessed work ... and have thanked you all my life for bringing it to me, but it has never been mine as it is yours.

Other aspects of her mind appear in connection with special experiences, as when she writes to one of the other doctors regarding a question of hospital discipline:

My dear Doctor:

I enclose the letter you handed to me and one from Dr. ——. Allow me to tell you how I have managed such letters. I have had precisely three similar experiences. Dr. ——’s patients left in the same way as Mrs. ——, and to this day their relatives are not satisfied that the patients were treated rightly. Still, they are good friends with me in spite of my having acted as I did. This was what I did.

When I received the first letter, I said to myself:

There are always two sides to every story.

I cannot act at all if I keep this letter secret, as I am requested to do.

If there is an accusation, I must have the excuse unless I want to ignore the whole concern and burn the letter.

I will not talk, so as not to run the risk of losing my temper.

Therefore, I sat down, wrote a note to the doctor and enclosed the letter of accusation, but requested her not to let either the patient or the student know about it but to tell me what she thought was best to be done.

Now this action seemed right to me, because

I investigated the other side.

I tried to put things to rights.

I gave a chance for explanations.

I could not become impatient, because both parties are always more careful when things are put on paper.

After I received the doctor’s reply, I took the letters, the patient and the doctor into a private room, and informed them why and how I had acted in the affair. Then I read both letters, and this was followed by an apology on both sides and the matter was ended.

Then, although the patient left the Hospital, she could not say that the doctor was not courteously treated by me. Nor could she say that justice was not done to her.

After this, the doctor and I together had an interview with the student, and we said as little or as much as was necessary to make her more careful, and that was ended.

As it happened, Dr. ——’s patient was one of more education and she saw that she was in the wrong, so she apologized and remained until the doctor discharged her.

I don’t think that either you or I are the last authority on such questions. They should be settled with all concerned in harmony and even with polite treatment of the culprit, should there be one.

If you lose your temper with a coworker, it lowers you in the eyes of patients or of others a great deal more than it hurts her. Everybody feels with or for the punished one, and nobody with the one who punishes or condemns.

I find that in going through the wards now, all the patients feel attached to the doctor and are full of her praise, and they hope she will have a good time and come back to her arduous duties with her usual strength, fine spirits and cheerfulness.

As soon as Dr. —— comes home, we shall work out rules for the physicians so that these will be ready for our next meeting. And if they are then properly discussed, I think it might be a good plan to have them printed in our report so that patients may learn their extent and on whom they depend.

When I received the first letter, I said to myself:
There are always two sides to every story.
I cannot act at all if I keep this letter secret, as I am requested to do.
If there is an accusation, I must have the excuse unless I want to ignore the whole concern and burn the letter.
I will not talk, so as not to run the risk of losing my temper.

I investigated the other side.
I tried to put things to rights.
I gave a chance for explanations.
I could not become impatient, because both parties are always more careful when things are put on paper.

Again, one of the doctors was evidently suffering from a wounded amour propre, feeling that she had not been treated with sufficient consideration. She had apparently expressed her grievance to Dr. Zakrzewska, and then being dissatisfied with the result of her interview, had tried to express herself more definitely in a letter. Dr. Zakrzewska replies:

My dear Dr. ——:

I will answer the last paragraph of your letter first, because this is the straw which shows how the wind blows, and it also confirms my impression concerning the cause of your manner. I have nothing to forgive in your manner because, personally, you have never offended me. I therefore have nothing to forget either.

But forgetting that we are colleagues and professional women interested in the same work and in the same great cause where harmony is so desirable, you seem to think, or rather you assert, that I should remember your years and your condition of health, which is to account for your speaking without thinking....

Now about your age, I never have thought of you as young even when you were young. At the time we met, I recognized in the instant the genuine talent and fervor of purpose of which you were possessed, and I accepted you not as an inferior but as an equal.

Do you think that I could now make an attempt to throw the mature woman from a past and from a place in my estimation which I let her occupy when she was really a young girl of no experience? Would not this be silly and mean? Do you admit that I am either, or both?

I always saw your weaknesses and faults as clearly as I see them now, and I often spoke plainly of them to you, but I never, never thought of putting you lower on account of them, because weaknesses we all have, and I am glad to bear and forbear with these in people who have something of worth to counterbalance, or else to place these faults entirely in the background.

You say you wish to preserve an opinion of your own on all Hospital matters. Who has ever wished more than I have that you would do this? How often have I said to you when you wished to make changes and have told me that you put these on me and my orders, that my shoulders were broad enough to carry all, but that I thought you should do things on your own authority as this seemed simply right. How often have I referred to you as being a more efficient authority on those points regarding which I thought you were.

And even when you did not agree with my propositions, when did you ever hear that I complained? On the contrary, have I not the more readily yielded and tried to investigate honestly which way would be best? “Do as you please,” “suit yourself,” “work in your own way”—are not these standing phrases which I have used to every physician?

I am ready to give up the Hospital work at any moment that you all think you can do without me. I have no ambition to work in it; I had only the ambition to help women into the position where they could work. And this I have accomplished.

In New York I did well, and I am remembered in an honorable and friendly way. And here in Boston I have certainly done my best. And if there are now a hundred women who differ from me and a thousand who know better than I do, I have nothing to say against it. On the contrary, I am glad and happy about it because this is just the condition which I strove for. My teachings have always been—you must all do better, far better, than I have done, because you have far better opportunities than I had. I helped to make those opportunities and shame upon you if you do not come out better than your present teacher.

No, no, my dear Doctor, it is not at all anything of this that is in your manner. In some way you have got it into your head and heart that you must play the first fiddle, or still better, be the conductor and show your importance in every way, small and big. You want the incense of having everybody look up to you as the most important person in the concern; you like to patronize, and so on.

And I, to tell the truth, am very willing that you should have all this pleasure because I do not care at all for these things. To me, the answer to one of the great questions of the time is to assist women into their right position whether or not they know me or my name (which, luckily, is so hard that they won’t even take the trouble to learn it).

Now, this will be the last time that I shall write on this subject. There is no use in trying to make artificially a harmony which does not any more come spontaneously. I am very willing, yes, even too willing, to allow myself to be overruled, because I do not care at all for the particular minutæ.

You know that I carried on the Hospital quite differently from Dr. —— or Dr. ——, yes, even from what you did, but I never tried, nor wanted to try, to interfere, because it is far better that each individual should do her work in her individual way. Otherwise, it must fail to be done well. Imitations are always inferior to the genuine article. But agreeing to a thing is not always liking it.

As for my having wounded your feelings, this is possible—but I daresay it was only in hospital matters when forced out by your hostile manner. I hope I never was rude in my social relations, and if I have been let me assure you that if you will tell me when and where I was so, I will certainly beg your pardon.