Gordon, Doris Clifton (1890–1956)
Gordon, Doris Clifton (1890–1956)
New Zealand doctor, university lecturer, obstetrician, and women's health reformer. Name variations: Doris Clifton Jolly. Born on July 10, 1890, in Melbourne, Australia; died July 9, 1956, in Stratford, New Zealand; dau. of Alfred Jolly (cleric) and Lucy Clifton (Crouch) Jolly; University of Otago Medical School, MB, ChB, 1916; m. William Patteson Pollock Gordon, 1917; children: 3 sons, 1 daughter.
Practiced medicine jointly with husband (1919); pioneered use in New Zealand of various forms of anaesthesia during childbirth; was instrumental in founding New Zealand Obstetrical Society (1927); organized successful campaign to raise public funds to establish chair in obstetrics at Otago Medical School (1931) and for Queen Mary Maternity Hospital in Dunedin (1938); helped to establish postgraduate school of obstetrics and gynecology at Auckland University College (1947); co-authored Gentlemen of the Jury (1937); became 1st woman in Australasia to gain fellowship of Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh (1925); elected to British College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (1936) and became honorary fellow (1954). MBE (1935).
See also autobiographies, Backblocks Baby-Doctor (1955) and Doctor Down Under (1957), and Dictionary of New Zealand Biography (Vol. 4).