Mary Black: Likely to change the rules
BMJ 2017; 358 doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.j3704 (Published 13 September 2017) Cite this as: BMJ 2017;358:j3704
Biography
Mary E Black is a public health doctor. “Tell the truth, and use numbers to help you,” is her philosophy. Raised in Northern Ireland and a graduate of Trinity College Dublin, she is currently senior adviser in digital and data science at Public Health England. Her very unusual CV includes establishing a new medical school in far north Queensland, working with the World Health Organization and Unicef in the Balkans, being a salmon judge in Alaska, and starting two successful technology companies. She also worked for the 2012 London Olympics and as a director of public health in London. Black has raised two adventurous children with Ozren Tosic, who saved her from pirates in the Bay of Bengal.
What was your earliest ambition?
To be a marine biologist. Jacques Cousteau got his fishhooks into my teenage psyche.
Who has been your biggest inspiration?
My aunt, Kate Fitzgerald, was an Irish nun and doctor. She ran hospitals in Nigeria and Malawi, did everything from obstetrics to surgery, and sent me the occasional wooden elephant. On her return to Ireland she left the church after clashing with her order on an issue of principle. She coloured her hair red and drove erratically around the Irish countryside in a red car. She was a star among women. And her sister—my mother, Margaret Black—trained as a surgeon and anaesthetist and got a clutch of gold medals. She later worked for the Blood Transfusion Service and would take home unused bags of blood for her roses, as she hated waste and was very practical. Not possible now . . .
What was the worst mistake in your career?
As an intern I left some breast biopsy samples on a shelf for a week, unlabelled and without formalin. We didn’t have a proper tracking system in place. Since then I’ve been deeply concerned with safe logistics: the medical world is full of busy, forgetful people. The second worst was procuring tons of warm underwear for hospital staff in Bosnia during the war. I learnt that, if you order winter supplies in October, they arrive too late to distribute and must then be warehoused at some cost.
What was your best career move?
The fanciest was becoming a foundation professor of public health at the University of Queensland, a job I got while young(ish) and pregnant. But the most fortunate was volunteering to mobilise my fellow public health trainees to analyse data in their spare time: I thought that it might help Donald Acheson in his role as head of WHO operations in the former Yugoslavia in 1992. Five days later I was told to drop everything and get on a plane, and my UN career started. Enthusiasm goes a long way: when in doubt, stand up, speak out, and just do something.
Who has been the best and the worst health secretary?
We all idolise Nye Bevan—he came out of the postwar period when we created the NHS, the UN, and other acts of collective public effort. Lansley and Hunt both came at a more cynical time when the public sector was being attacked, and they’ve both failed to turn that tide.
Who is the person you would most like to thank, and why?
My husband, for wise advice, love, and mutual additions to the global gene pool. Plus a long list of colleagues, friends, relatives, patients, and the many folks who have shared our stories along life’s path.
To whom would you most like to apologise?
Anyone for whom I’ve harboured hate or resentment over the years. I apologise for giving them that much attention.
If you were given £1m what would you spend it on?
Split three ways: to the Big Issue Foundation (housing and livelihoods), the Big Sing (music), and Paintings in Hospitals (art). I’d seek advice to make sure that the donations were tax-free and would also try to leverage donor matching funds to help turn it into £2m.
Where are or when were you happiest?
The night my daughter was born: I experienced several hours of profound spiritual enlightenment. Years later I realised that my husband thought I’d been gabbling nonsense. I wasn’t—it really was nirvana. Nothing since has come close. Everyday happiness involves coasts, harbours, and waves. Plus friends and a changeable sky.
What single unheralded change has made the most difference in your field in your lifetime?
The internet has democratised information and knowledge, enabling us to partner up with all sort of colleagues, patients, and specialties. The explosion of information is both empowering and overwhelming.
Do you support doctor assisted suicide?
Yes. However, I’m nervous about how it may change our society and how it will work in practice: we need moral and ethical frameworks and continued discussions.
What book should every doctor read?
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by the science writer Rebecca Skloot. Imagine having your cells spread around the world in petri dishes: is that immortality? It’s a story about a woman, written by a woman, and it deals with complex, modern ethical and moral issues. Colleagues featured in this column rarely cite books by and about women, and it’s time to change that.
What poem, song, or passage of prose would you like mourners at your funeral to hear?
A recording of me singing “Dust in the Wind” by Kansas. Then whatever people like, as I hope to live long enough for my death to be a celebration and not a tragedy.
What is your guiltiest pleasure?
Expanding my carbon footprint by flying to hang out with my son in Melbourne.
What television programmes do you like?
The 2017 adaptation of Margaret Atwood’s dystopian novel The Handmaid’s Tale is superb, prescient, and way beyond “liking.” It prompts the need for us, as doctors, to speak out and act. Everything in it is happening somewhere right now.
What is your most treasured possession?
My health. I also own, as a taxpayer, a tiny slice of that miracle of common good—the NHS.
What, if anything, are you doing to reduce your carbon footprint?
I no longer own a car, I rarely eat meat, I’ve installed double glazing and insulation, I separate my rubbish, and I buy as little stuff as possible, much of it second hand.
What personal ambition do you still have?
To do a full lotus position in yoga. Underwater.
Summarise your personality in three words
Clever, tolerant, creative—and very likely to question and then change the rules.
Where does alcohol fit into your life?
Less and less.
What is your pet hate?
The machinery of war and how we’re manipulated by it.
What would be on the menu for your last supper?
A surprise menu, cooked together with friends and family at a long table outside, on a gentle summer’s evening by the sea. There must be wild flowers, bats, and a sunset.
Do you have any regrets about becoming a doctor?
No, but I will regret not knowing what it’s like to live as a musician, athlete, or marine biologist. Medicine opens the doors to so many kinds of work and life. I’ve shared remarkable journeys with patients, scanned the health of the population, undertaken the minutest and most detailed surgical interventions, and saved lives. The most memorable involved wresting a defibrillator from a passing ambulance and applying it to a collapsed Spanish waiter on the pavement in London’s Tottenham Court Road. He survived.
If you weren’t in your present position what would you be doing instead?
Depending on the turn of life’s dice, it could’ve been anything. I’ll never know.
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