CHAPTER XXVIII
By resignation of the resident physician, Dr. Zakrzewska is obliged to resume entire charge of Hospital and Dispensary and she again shows symptoms of overfatigue and strain while awaiting Dr. Sewall’s return from Europe to fill the vacant position—Illustrations of the application of Dr. Zakrzewska’s humanitarian instincts and intellectual convictions to the treatment of her patients, in addition to technical medical care—“A Lesson”—“Another True Story.” (1863.)
As Dr. Sewall accepted the offer of the position of resident physician at the Hospital, to take effect on her return from Europe in September, Dr. Zakrzewska continued to fill the duties of this position both at the Hospital and on the two added days in the Dispensary.
The most robust health and endurance have their limits, and she has already been noted as giving many symptoms which showed that she had been presuming on hers ever since the over-strenuous days of establishing the New York Infirmary. Repeated notes of overfatigue and strain creep into these letters to Dr. Sewall.
Specializing largely, as she did, in that branch of medicine (obstetrics) which is most regardless of convenience and most inconsiderate as to sleeping hours, she worked literally day and night. And feeling the whole burden of responding to the demand for the trained woman physician which she had so largely helped in awakening, she refused no patients.
Her humanitarian instincts and her admirable ability to enter into the feelings of her patients, and to recognize their limitations and their struggles, prompted her to send no bills until they were asked for. She writes:
If you could see my office day after day full of school-teachers, dressmakers, mill operatives and domestics, all too proud to go to the dispensary and yet not rich enough to pay a large fee, you would agree with me that the prescription for good meat, wine or beer would be a farce if I took the money with which they ought to buy these instead of taking the small fee which allows them to keep their self-respect.
Not content with reducing her fees to a minimum or to zero, she always added the constructive work which from her point of view belonged within the province of her profession. This was not done by giving charity regarding which she had definite and very modern views. She writes:
It is not Charity which we must cultivate and practice: it is Justice to one another. Charity is what an opiate is to a patient: it soothes for the time but the same bad consequences result as follow the drug. We must teach ourselves that the Golden Rule must be actually practiced in order to reach and raise those who need to be helped.
And again she emphasizes: