Irene Marion Desmet: pioneering neonatal surgeon
BMJ 2020; 369 doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.m1397 (Published 07 April 2020) Cite this as: BMJ 2020;369:m1397
- John Illman
- London, UK
- john{at}jicmedia.org
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The eminent paediatric and neonatal surgeon Irene Marion Desmet (née Irving) wrote with classic understatement: “I feel that my real claim to fame is that of having managed to combine the careers of motherhood and surgery.”
This was much harder for her generation than for today’s. A former senior consultant surgeon at Alder Hey Children’s Hospital in Liverpool, and a prolific author, Desmet was among the first women to go to medical school immediately after the second world war—at the age of just 17. As a surgeon, mother of three children, and a hotelier wife who often cooked for guests, she was pulled in many different directions.
A natural leader
The challenge may have overwhelmed lesser women, but Desmet was—to use a word not then fashionable—“feisty.” She qualified as a pilot at the age of 20 and, rare for a woman then, had a passion for cars. As a woman she was viewed with …
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