Gertrude Marian Amalie Herzfeld

Before becoming the first woman to take her seat as a Fellow of the College, Gertrude Herzfeld had initially to overcome many of the barriers and the prejudices which still existed against women doctors in the years around the Great War. She went on to become a paediatric surgeon in Edinburgh, the first women to hold such an appointment in Scotland.

Gertrude Marian Amilie Herzfeld was born in London to where her parents had emigrated from Austria. She had decided early on in life to become a doctor despite the widespread prejudice which prevailed against women in medicine at that time. As an undergraduate in Edinburgh she was one of the earliest winners of the Dorothy Gilfillan prize for the best woman student of the year at a time when men and women had to attend lectures separately. She was the first women House Officer appointed by Sir Harold Styles. During the War she worked as a surgeon in the RMC Hospital in Aldershot. Returning to Edinburgh she became assistant surgeon at The Royal Hospital for Sick Children and in 1920 became the first women to take her seat as a Fellow of this College (note about first women to pass Fellowship Examination). Her first appointment was to the Bruntsfield Hospital for Women and Children and, in 1925 the resignation of Sir John Fraser saw her appointment, along with Norman Dott, as surgeon to The Royal Hospital for Sick Children. She was the first woman surgeon in Scotland. Over the next 30 years she developed a growing practice of the full range of paediatric surgery but in particular the developing sub-specialty of neonatal surgery. A contemporary described her as large in every best sense of the word – large in heart and in mind..

She promoted the cause of women in medicine latterly becoming President of the Womens Medical Federation.