Sister Kenny

A semi-fictionalized account of the adult life of Elizabeth Kenny is presented. This phase of her story begins in the pre-WWI era, when she begins work as a well-respected, well-liked bush nurse in the Australian outback of Queensland, near where she grew up. She decides on this work rather than to take a job in a Brisbane hospital under her mentor, general practitioner Dr. McDonnell, as was expected because she feels she can do more good in the outback. In her work, she encounters several cases of what she will learn is infantile paralysis aka polio, for which there is no cure. The remote diagnosis is made by renowned Brisbane orthopedic surgeon Dr. Brack via Dr. McDonnell, who in his telegram tells Elizabeth to treat the symptoms as best she can. In doing so, she is able to cure all her cases to the point of the children being able to walk unaided. Elizabeth is unaware of what she has discovered until she goes into the city and meets with Drs. McDonnell and Brack and learns that polio victims are generally treated by immobilization of the affected muscles, which requires splints, braces and aids to assist in walking. While Dr. McDonnell realizes what Elizabeth has done, Dr. Brack, an expert in the field, dismisses her cases as not being infantile paralysis, and he refusing to allow Elizabeth to demonstrate on or treat any acute cases in the hospital, he fearing for the patients' safety and well-being. As Elizabeth begins to be convinced by Dr. McDonnell that she has indeed discovered a new more effective treatment for polio, she begins to butt heads with Dr. Brack, who is convinced that she is a quack, largely because she is not a physician, let alone not one specializing in orthopedics. Dr. Brack is also able to convince the same to the medical community in orthopedics in Australia. Elizabeth has to decide how far she will take this fight, which if she does make it her mission to try to treat cases of polio and to make the Kenny treatment as it is called the new method of treatment within the general medical community, will be incompatible with a family life of her own, Captain Kevin Connors with the Australian Army, a longtime beau who wants to marry her.