Helen Howard (née Raw)

Helen Howard (née Raw) died in November 2009 aged 67 of acute myeloid leukaemia following a courageous struggle over two and a half years with myelodysplastic syndrome and chronic myelomonocytic leukaemia.

Helen was academically bright and inquisitive, and ever since her school days she had a passion for anything scientific. She was an avid reader of the BMJ and scientific journals, and, as well as anything medical, she was especially interested in physics and astronomy.

Helen studied medicine at Queen’s University Belfast in the early 1960s. She had a break of 15 years from medicine to bring up her family and followed her husband and his career, which took them all over the country. Her own need was not so much for a career but …