A pioneering spirit remembered
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posted
02/04/2008
expires
02/07/2008
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 On the anniversary of her birthday this week, family, staff and others who had worked with her, gathered at the Royal Free to pay tribute to the late Dame Sheila Sherlock.
They were there for an event to launch the renaming of the hospital’s liver service – now called the Royal Free Sheila Sherlock Liver Centre in honour of “the mother of hepatology”.
A pioneering spirit, who joined the Royal Free in 1959, Dame Sheila was way ahead of her time. In pre-war Britain it was extremely difficult for a woman to study medicine. Undeterred by several rejections, she was finally accepted at Edinburgh University – the start of a glittering career.
She went on to become the first woman to be appointed professor of medicine in the UK, and a fellow of the Royal College of Physicians aged just 33. “She really changed our view of liver disease, its diagnosis and treatment,,” said Professor Neil McIntyre. “Her legacy lives on, with many of those she trained now leading liver units at hospitals around the world.”
But it wasn’t all work for the world’s leading authority on liver disease. “Sheila really knew how to run a party!” recalled Professor McIntyre. “We worked hard but boy, was it fun!”
Her husband, Gerry James, told the audience: “We enjoyed 50 happy years of married life.” And her daughter, Amanda, said: “My mother loved the Royal Free and gave so many years of her life to her patients there, this feels like a fitting tribute. I know she would be thrilled to see how current staff are maintaining the tradition of excellence that was so important to her. She would feel the lives of liver patients are in very safe hands.”
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