Profile: Leela Kapila

A stereotype of female surgeons is that they are all aggressive and domineering. Whoever started that rumour has not met Leela Kapila, a recently retired consultant paediatric surgeon.

My first sight of Miss Kapila is of a welcoming figure swathed in a yellow chiffon sari, ushering me into the Royal College of Surgeons of England. Before her retirement, this softly spoken woman combined clinical commitments as a paediatric surgeon at Nottingham's University Hospital with responsibilities as an examiner and an elected member of the Royal College of Surgeons council. She has also held the chairs of Women in Surgical Training and the Education Board.

As we settle into the plush lounge, surrounded by grand oil paintings of surgeons, Miss Kapila expresses surprise and delight that she is here at all, “I have not always done things on my own initiative. Sometimes people have suggested that I try things,” and this is exactly how she fell into surgery.

In 1962, a forward thinking consultant surgeon, A J Walton, who Miss Kapila worked for as a house officer, suggested she consider a surgical career. Her first reaction was, “It's a man's job.” She had just arrived from India and had little idea about the NHS system. For example, on her first ward round she was concerned about the number of investigations being carried out, because she thought the patients …