Life in Her Hands: The Inspiring Story of a Pioneering Female Surgeon

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In 1991 Mansfield was invited to set up an organisation, through the Royal College of Surgeons, called Women in Surgical Training, which later became Women in Surgery, to ‘encourage, enable and inspire’ other females to follow her lead.

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Although we were producing lots of female medical students, we were not producing lots of female surgeons,” says Mansfield. There was one man in my clinic at St Mary’s with an aortic aneurysm who stripped naked and laid on the couch for me to examine him,” recalls Mansfield. “Afterwards I said: ‘Put your clothes on and we’ll have a chat’ and he said: ‘When will I see Professor Mansfield?’ Could women be more sensitive to certain procedures - gynaecological ones, perhaps? "Gynaecologists of both sexes understand the problems very well. I don't think there's any difference between the approach. It's what appeals to you as a patient. Some would definitely prefer to go to a man, some to a woman. The important thing is to let them have choice."

Over the past 30 years, Mansfield has somehow found time with her husband, also a surgeon, to restore a 300-year-old stone-built house in the Lake District, "very very gradually. It's been a lovely thing - just to turn away from complex medical problems to this. It's finished now." And she plays the piano and cello. To unwind? Another no. "I'm not a very stressed person. I don't have too much unwinding to do." Could she be exceptional? Have other women encountered difficulties? "No, but perhaps I only meet the ones who are successful. I think the most important thing for women is to achieve the standard and not to expect any favours. If you do that, you can expect to be treated as an equal." A cynic might think that Mansfield is just saying all this because she is very keen indeed for more women to become surgeons. She is at present leading a project to build the Eleanor Davies-Colley memorial lecture theatre at the Royal College of Surgeons of England (RCS), to celebrate and encourage women in surgery "to impress upon women that this college will welcome them". After retiring in 2002, she became chair of the Stroke Association, helping to improve the quality of stroke services throughout the country, and was elected President of the BMA in 2009.

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Today, 17% of surgeons are women, although male consultant surgeons still outnumber females by a ratio of 8:1. Membership of Women in Surgery, which also welcomes medical students, has grown to 6,000. But being able to offer such a choice does not appear to be on the horizon. At present only 6.3% of female medical students take up surgery, although women make up nearly 70% of the intake at some medical schools. (The usual figure is 50/50.) Women in Surgery is not about positive discrimination, but giving support that can help women on their way and make sure they get the advice they need. I was expected to go down a pole into the ship to administer analgaesia before he could be rescued.Averil Mansfield was an ambitious and talented young doctor when she announced, to a senior surgeon, her plan to marry her architect boyfriend. She was outraged when the Dean of St Mary’s, Professor Peter Richards, issued a statement that she was appointed “purely and only on merit”. Averil said: “It suddenly must have occurred to him, ‘Oh, perhaps everyone will think we are giving her the job because she is a woman’.”

Some thoughts on a career in surgery | The Bulletin of the Some thoughts on a career in surgery | The Bulletin of the

Anaesthesia has improved in leaps and bounds during my time as a surgeon. When I started in 1960, anaesthesia was not nearly as sophisticated as it is now and there was no such thing as an intensive care unit. The anaesthetist keeps the patient alive while we surgeons carry out major and, sometimes, quite hazardous procedures. They have the knowledge and skills to maintain the integrity of a patient’s cardiovascular system during the course of the procedure. As surgeons we depend on the anaesthetist and it’s very much a partnership. I’ve worked with some wonderful anaesthetists and I’ve always been grateful for how they ensure patients are well looked after. a b "The NHS Heroes Awards". 21 May 2018. ITV. {{ cite episode}}: Missing or empty |series= ( help)The 'audience' of shipworkers delighted in telling me that there were rats the size of dogs down in the grain.

Averil Mansfield | Waterstones Life in Her Hands by Averil Mansfield | Waterstones

Mansfield was born 11 years before the advent of the NHS – she recalls her parents saving money in a jar on the mantelpiece to pay medical bills – and witnessed the many benefits it provided as well as huge advances in technology during her years in practice. The book, Life in Her Hands, details Averil’s trailblazing career, qualifying as a surgeon in 1972, a time when just two per cent of her colleagues were female.

Her parents spent years trying to deter their headstrong daughter from pursuing an ambition sparked at the age of eight as she thumbed through medical books in her local library. Perhaps most exciting of all: I learned to play the cello! I’m a good pianist and have been for quite a part of my life but I’d always wanted to play in an orchestra, so I thought I’d take up the cello. I wouldn’t say I’m a cellist at all but I play it sufficiently well to enjoy it, to play with other people, and to play in an orchestra. I play with two amateur orchestras and they give me a great deal of pleasure. It’s a lovely thing to do at the age of 80! Advice for young surgeons Just 2% of surgeons in the UK were women when Mansfield qualified in the early Seventies. By the Nineties, when 97% of surgeons were male, not much had changed.