Professor of surgery enters a male theatre

BRITAIN'S first female professor of surgery,Averil Mansfield, was appointed 'purely and only on merit', said a statement sent out last week by St Mary's Hospital Medical School in London.

That the school felt it necessary to to reassure people of her merits is an indication of the male stranglehold on this branch of the medical profession. She is one of only 75 female surgeons among more than 3,400 males at consultant level. If a man had been appointed to the post, it would not have prompted a press release, much less a justification of why.

Professor Mansfield understands why it happened but is clearly riled by this lapse in political correctness by the Dean of St Mary's, Professor Peter Richards. 'I know, I know; it is irritating,' she said. 'It suddenly must have occurred to him that I was the first woman to be made a surgical professor and then he thought, 'Oh, perhaps everyone will think we are giving the job because she is a woman'.'

It is probably the most blatant piece of sexism that Professor Mansfield has encountered since she qualified as a doctor at Liverpool University in 1960. She was born in Blackpool in 1937 into a 'non-medical' family and set her heart on being a surgeon from an early age. Her appointment as professor of vascular (blood-vessel) surgery and director of the academic department of surgery at St Mary's crowns an illustrious career in academia and the NHS.

She was madea consultant surgeon in 1972 while working in Liverpool and joined St Mary's in 1982 as honorary senior lecturer. She has won a succession of prizes and eminent appointments, including presidency of the Association of Surgeons of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and membership of the council of the Royal College of Surgeons.

Being a woman was never an issue, she insists. 'I have no horrific anecdotes about male colleagues; I have always been well supported. Occasionally, people told me it would be difficult as a surgeon, particularly if I married and had children, and I suppose you could build this up into 'prejudice' if you wanted. I found any challenge goaded me on.'

More than 50 per cent of new medical students are female, but women make up under 16 per cent of consultants. At a conference on women in medicine earlier this month, the NHS Management Executive admitted that its goal of increasing the number of female consultants to 20 per cent by the end of 1994 was impossible to achieve. Women were not trying to become consultants, the conference was told, because hospital culture remained male, competitive and hostile to them.

They were forced to chose specialities that allowed them to combine work with a family. Surgery is way down the list. 'Once you start on the surgical ladder it really is non-stop: on- call, being dragged out of bed at all hours of the night,' Professor Mansfield concedes.

She is by no means typical of most women in medicine, having worked full-time throughout her career with no time out for 'family commitments,' but she wants her appointment to act as a spur to other women to make a career in surgery. She is chairwoman of a programme run by the Royal College of Surgeons to encourage more women in the field. She rules out positive discrimination but says the climate is changing in their favour anyway, with the introduction of defined limits for surgical training instead of the 'interminable periods' before achieving a consultant post.

'We are going to try to define training, to say you will need to have done this, seen that, and shown you are competent in these areas. This is going to make it easier for women because they can collect 'bits' of training in between taking time off, and they would still count. I married late and I was lucky to acquire three stepchildren who were close to their teens, and it is difficult to say whether I would be in this position today if I had married and had my own children.'

She hopes that any female professor of surgery asked that question in future will have no doubt about the answer.

(Photograph omitted)