88
Although Dr. Gibson responded favourably to the Chinese subscribers' request for a lady doctor, and despite his protestations to the contrary, it seems that he had no thought that she would be a full partner in the medical enterprise. From the correspondence, Dr. Gibson emerges as a man committed to the medical mission endeavour, taking every opportunity to expand its influence and asserting the right to be unencumbered in the running of the hospitals. At his arrival in 1897, as a well-qualified graduate of the Edinburgh medical school, he was in conflict with the District Committee over their control of the hospital via the Hospital House Committee, which comprised Dr. Ho Kai, the Hospital Chairman, the medical staff, and the missionaries of the LMS in Hong Kong. He insisted that their role was advisory, and that interference in the appointment of staff would impede the hospital's proper management. The Committee was dissolved, and from 1898, the hospital was managed by the LMS District Committee and the Medical Superintendent, Dr. Gibson. He was also unable to work satisfactorily with the private practitioners, leaders in the Hong Kong medical community, who worked as honoraries in the hospital, and their services were discontinued. Thus, from the beginning, Dr. Gibson attempted and, to some extent, gained his independence regarding what he saw as his sphere.
How well he coped with the pressures of his expanding role is questionable. Certainly, he regularly replied to LMS London correspondence months later, with apologies and complaints about how overworked he was. In 1906, Mr. Pearce, the Secretary of the Hong Kong District Committee of the LMS, commented that he hoped Dr. Gibson would be refreshed and less difficult after his furlough. Noting that, with the acceptance of an offer from an Australian nurse, Miss Langdon, to work voluntarily in the hospital, the medical mission would have four workers, Dr. Gibson continued: 'we must pray to be kept humble'. His co-operative relationship with Mrs. Stevens until her death in 1903 is apparent, as they shared plans for new services and began their twice-weekly trips to Kowloon to run the new clinic there. At her death on 5 December 1903, his grief and sense of loss were strong. Yet a lady doctor was a different matter and a threat in a way which a hospital matron was not.
What Dr. Gibson wanted was a lady doctor who would work in a voluntary or privately funded capacity, as in the LMS China posts, and who, therefore, would not be a member of the hospital's establishment.