Dr. Sims was so disheartened, he decided to leave that town, and he did so. But it is just to him to add that he further wrote, “Being obliged to continue in the profession that I had started in, I was determined to make up my deficiency by hard work; and this was not to come from reading books, but from observation and from diligent attention to the sick.”
Thus it happened at the New England Female Medical College that, feeling as strongly as I did as to the necessity for clinical training, I made but few friends among my listeners, and I felt out of place except with those few who had had superior educational training. This difference in education naturally divided the students, and the feeling of favoritism grew stronger with the majority, while my interest in this majority naturally grew weaker. The clinical department was frequented only by the few, as no rule of compulsion demanded of the students a regular attendance.
My position became tedious in its teaching duties and unendurable in its relation to the students, yet I had nothing to complain of which could be corrected without changing the whole policy of the school and eliminating the most active directors, in fact, starting a college on college foundations.
My male co-workers, men of education and experience, fully agreed with me and told me that indorsing my election, they had hoped I would prevail upon the founders to elevate the standard of the school.
I, a foreigner who, as such, was not greeted with a cordial welcome by two thirds of the directors! And the Know-Nothing spirit prevailing strongly during those years in all strata of the community!
Besides, I did not feel called upon to condemn and to reform the part of their enterprise which had been justly praised in speech and in print, and which had been sustained for years by the efforts of regular physicians in the capacity of professors and private preceptors.
So, when my first college year closed, in March, 1860, and I flatly refused to agree to the bestowal of the degree of M.D. upon several women who presented themselves, I had laid the foundation of a hatred which rendered my work extremely trying and hard, and which to a certain extent prevented the growth of our out-door dispensary practice.
However, my private practice steadily increased, and in it I had the good will, as well as the assistance when in need, of the most prominent physicians in Boston. Among these were Drs. S. Cotting, Walter Channing, H. I. Bowditch, E. H. Clark and S. Cabot.
These men advised me to attempt to gain admission into the Massachusetts Medical Society, of which they were prominent members. After preparing for the necessary examination, I presented my claim but was refused because I was a woman, their charter allowing only male candidates for the examination.
This refusal on the ground of sex decided these men not to break the rules of the Massachusetts Medical Society by consulting with me or by assisting me when advising patients to seek my attendance.