INVITATION TO THE COMMUNITY to hear the Doris Gordon Memorial Trust Lecture presented by Dr. Ronald W Jones

“Doris Gordon - Foundation of a Legacy”

on Tuesday 23 March 2021 at 5.30pm to 6.30pm.

Tea/ coffee to follow plus mingle and speak to Ron

Venue:  Eagars’ Te Henui Chapel, 174 Lemon Street, New Plymouth [inside the gates of  Te Henui Cemetery] 

Venue kindly made available by Eagars’ Funerals


enquiries to email:  gordonlegacynz@gmail.com           
no charge.
Any donations accepted towards support for breastfeeding mothers.
off-street parking
live streamed to the lecture page at eagars.co.nz/dorisgordon  


Ron Jones, CNZM for services to women’s health;  MB Ch.B, MD (Otago), FRCS (Ed), FRCOG, FRANZCOG, FAOFOG (Hon), is Chairman of the Doris Gordon Memorial Trust.  He is a Retired Clinical Professor of Obstetrics and Gynaecology.

The Doris Gordon Memorial Trust was re-established in 2014 to recognise the outstanding contribution to New Zealand made by Doctor Doris Gordon, MBE, FRCS (Edin), FRCOG, DPH.

DORIS GORDON

M.B.E., F.R.C.S.(Edin), F.R.C.O.G., D.P.H.

Died at Marire Hospital, Stratford, on 9 July 1956 aged 65 years (one day short of her 66th birthday).

‘Dr Doris’ as she was always called, graduated M.B., Ch B (NZ) in 1916.

In 1917 she gained the Diploma of Public Health.

During this year she married Dr William (Bill) Gordon, two weeks before he left on overseas war service.

In 1925 Doris became a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh.

In 1927 Dr Doris established the New Zealand Obstetrical Society.

Her work on behalf of the women of New Zealand led to the award of an M.B.E. in 1935.

She was elected to the British College of Obstetrics and Gynaecologists in 1936.

After WW11 Doris accepted the post of New Zealand Director of Maternal Welfare from 1946 to 1948.

At London in 1954, she became an honorary fellow of the Royal College of Obstetrics and Gynaecologists, being - at that time - the only woman outside royalty to be so honoured and the only woman in the southern hemisphere.

Doris Gordon (nee Jolly) was born in Melbourne on 10 July 1890.  The family emigrated to New Zealand in 1894.  Doris entered the University of Otago Medical School in 1911. She topped the class in both medical and surgical examinations in 1915 and graduated in 1916. She became a house surgeon at Dunedin Hospital in 1916.

Doris had decided to devote herself to country practice, but worked for a temporary period as a university lecturer in microbiology.   In 1918 she acted as locum for various practices in the lower North Island, including that of Dr T.L. Paget in Stratford, eventually going into partnership with Dr Paget.    Dr Doris later described back block practice as “bog, bush and candlelight” medicine.

Early settlers farming the lush lands at the feet of Mount Taranaki greeted the first woman doctor to the area with curiosity.  “Do you think you can run this practice?”

“I see you can drive a car, but could you ride a horse along a bush track?”

“A woman doctor indeed!”

These were the people she had in mind.  “Their roads, their pastures, their mud and their milk became also my daily problems.”

At that time, only the main roads around Stratford were metalled and very few people had cars.  “It was in those milk wagons, bedded down in hay or cow covers, that my first hundred or so maternity cases were brought into the nine-bed hospital I had under my care,”  she recalled.