Mother of 4 Becomes Doctor

              "A PILL FOR CHARLIE," prescribes
Dr. Mary Wood, mother of four who
went back to medical school in 1963, 18
years after receiving her Bachelor of
Science degree from the University of
Kentucky. She interned at a hospital in
Pensacola, Fla., and is now a first-year
resident in radiology at Confederate
Memorial Medical Center. Her husband
(seated, right) Dr- Charles Wood, Ph.D.,
is on the pharmacology staff at the
Louisiana State University Medical
School in Shreveport, and children
Lucy, Ann and Marie (standing, left to
right) wait their turn. (Times Photo by
Billy Upshaw)
Mother of 4 Becomes Doctor
By MARGARET MARTIN
Of The Times Staff
When Mary Wood graduat-ed
from the University of
Kentucky, she had all of the
credentials to enter medical
school to become a doctor.
Eighteen years and four
children later, her plans
became a reality when she
walked down the aisle at the
University of Arkansas Medi-cal
School to receive her
medical degree and the title
"doctor."
Now a first-year radiology
resident at Confederate Me-morial
Medical Center, Dr.
Wood received the bachelor
of science degree from Ken-tucky
in 1948 and the medical
degree from Arkansas in
1966.
She chose Confederate be-cause
her husband, who
holds the Ph.D., was named
to the pharmacology staff at
the Louisiana State Universi-ty
Medical School in Shreve-port.
"I had always planned to
go back to medical school,
but the ideal time came
when we were in Little Rock.
My mother was living there
and was able to help with the
children," said the doctor.
Some Problems
"And," she added, "my
husband encouraged me to
go back."
Going back to school had
its good and bad sides, she
commented.
"The main problem was
readjusting the family sched-ule,
but in a lot of ways, it
was easier for me than for
the younger students because
I had had experience with
children, and because there
are several doctors in my
family, I was familiar with
medical terminology," she
added.
"It was really, though,
only a matter of setting up a
routine.
"For instance, I studied
after the children — Charles,
9, Ann, 11, Lucy 13, and
Marie, 14 — had gone to bed,
and I adjusted my class
schedule so that I could be at
home early in the morning to
see the children off to
school," she added.
She did have one advan-tage
over some of her
classmates — she had an 8
a.m. class which she could
cut at will, for the professor,
her husband, could tutor her
at home on the subject
matter.
But this was somewhat of
a disadvantage, too, "be
cause he tended to go
overboard in overgrading my
test papers."
She interned at a hospital
in Pensacola, where her
husband was doing research
in the Navy Aerospace Pro-gram.
Dr. Wood chose radiology
as her speciality "because it
suits my personality and it
has always interested me,"
and said that after the
three-year residency training
program "I'd like to continue
work in a teaching hospital."
Dr. Wood said that she'd
encourage women to go into
medicine, but frowns on
"women who graduate from
medical school ad never
practice," blaming them "for
the difficulty women have
getting into medical school
for they take up a spot that a
man could have and then
never accept the responsibili-ty
of working as a doctor."