Alice Mary Bush (née Stanton, 7 August 1914 – 12 February 1974) was a pioneering New Zealand female physician, paediatrician and activist for family planning services and abortion access.
Early life and education
Bush was born in 1914, the first daughter of lawyer Sir Joseph Stanton and Marjorie McMaster. She had two brothers and two sisters and the family lived in Mountain Road, Epsom. She attended Hill Top School and Diocesan School for Girls. Bush wanted to be a doctor from an early age. After one year's study at Auckland University College Bush entered the Otago Medical School at the University of Otago, Dunedin, in 1933, and completed her MB and ChB in 1937. At medical school she received the Scott Medal for knowledge of human anatomy but being female was not offered the position of graduate demonstrator in anatomy which was awarded to medal holders. She participated in wider student life in the Women's Students Club, Medical Debating Society and Student's Association.
Medical career
In 1938, she was appointed a house surgeon at Auckland Hospital. To take up the appointment she had to obtain permission to live at home in Mountain Road as there was no suitable accommodation at the hospital for female staff. From 1939 to 1940 she was senior house surgeon at New Plymouth Hospital. In 1940 Bush took over the practice of Dr Edward Sayers when he went to serve in World War II. He specialised in parasitology, infectious diseases and the treatment of allergies and asthma and was on the medical staff of Auckland's Truby King Karitane Hospital and Mothercraft Care facility. Bush joined the Karitane staff remaining there until her death. When Sayers returned in 1944 he and Bush practiced in partnership and she also was appointed to a position in the paediatric ward at Auckland Hospital, which she needed to qualify in paediatrics. From 1947 to 1950 she lived in London, where she served as a doctor at the Great Ormond Street Hospital For Sick Children and studied for a Diploma in Child Health.
On her return to New Zealand Bush became a paediatric physician at Auckland Hospital, continued on the medical staff of Karitane Hospital and set up her own private practice in paediatrics and the treatment of allergies and asthma.
During the 1940s–50s Bush gained a number of professional qualifications. She became a member of the Royal Australasian College of Physicians in 1946 and in 1955 was the first New Zealand woman to become a Fellow of the College. In 1949 she gained her membership of the Royal College of Physicians, MRCP; she became an FRCP in 1970, again the first New Zealand woman to do so.
In the forties, Bush also became involved in medical politics. She joined a study group formed by Douglas Robb and was co-author of a document that recommended A National Health Service (1943) for New Zealand. She also served as Secretary (1945–1946) and President (1948, 1953) of the Auckland branch of the New Zealand Medical Women's Association. In 1947 Bush was one of the founders of the Paediatric Society. She became a lecturer for the YWCA on sex education, particularly the topics of venereal disease and extra-marital pregnancy. She wrote a booklet Personal Relationships (1944) as a result of her lectures.
Bush gave family planning assistance to the Ōtara Māori Committee in the late 1960s and was made an honorary tohunga of Ōtara. She was active in a number of other organisations which supported women and children or other health issues: Zonta Club of Auckland, the National Council of Women, Playcentre Association, Parents Centre, New Zealand Speech Therapists Association, the Auckland Asthma Society and the International Planned Parenthood Federation.