Gertrud Dina Schachenmann

Gertrud Dina Schachenmann graduated with the Matura from the Kantonsschule in Schaffhausen in 1929. She was a passionate reader and lover of books, and decided to study medicine, a choice not welcomed by her parents. Following studies in Geneva, Paris and Zurich, she passed the state examination in 1935, and three years later she became professor Guido Fanconi’s (1892-1979) first assistant at the Kinderspital in Zurich. In 1939 she had to hurry back to her hometown to take over leadership of the medical department of the Kantonsspital Schaffhausen, because the doctors there had been called up for military service. After this experience with adult medicine, she returned to the Kinderspital Zürich, where she was appointed assistant physician in 1943.

From 1945 to 1949 Gertrud Schachenmann practised as a paediatrician in Schaffhausen, before being appointed chief physician at the nursing school in Zurich in 1950. In 1961 she became the first president of the Paediatric Society of Zurich, and at the same time was made physician-in-chief to all nursing schools in Switzerland.

In 1971 She resigned from this position and spent two years training to become a specialist on children with developmental problems, in particular cerebral paralyses. She opened her specialist practice in Oberhellau in 1973.

We thank Patrick Jucker-Kupper for information submitted.

• Susanne Greutmann:
  Gertrud Schachenmann Dr. med.: *1910, Kinderärztin.
  In: Arbeitsgemeinschaft Frau und Politik (Hg.) Frauenpfade. Auf den Spuren bekannter Schaffhauser Frauen. Schaffhausen 1994. Pp 90-94 (with picture).