Women are 'just same as men' but there's 'a long way to go' says pioneer surgeon
“Women surgeons are as good as men surgeons and nothing should stand in our way.”
Dame Averil Mansfield, who was appointed the UK’s first female professor of surgery 30 years ago, is still sending a defiant message as she receives the Pride Of Britain Lifetime Achievement award. The formidable Averil, now 86, has had a remarkable medical career, which saw her defy the odds to qualify as a consultant in 1972 at the age of 35. At the time, less than 0.5% of the profession were women.
In 1991, she 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. Throughout her career, her motto was “lift as you climb”.
Averil receiving an NHS Heroes award from Camilla in 2018 (MDM)
She aims to 'encourage, enable and inspire' (TIM ANDERSON)Paving the way
With more than 6,000 members today, the organisation – which also welcomes medical students – is thriving. But while the statistics of women in surgery have increased to 17% today, male consultant surgeons still outnumber females by a ratio of 8:1.
“There is still a long way to go,” Averil tells Notebook, highlighting the need for support for women when it comes to juggling the demands of a career in medicine with family life. “It’s pretty obvious there are real difficulties in getting childcare. It’s the difficulty in finding it and paying for it because it’s become a real expense and in some cases takes up every bit that women earn. Also, it’s important to understand that it is a perfectly proper and reasonable career for a woman to pursue – we are just the same as men.”
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Born in 1937 to a welder father and stay-at-home mum in a council house in Blackpool, Averil was eight years old when she read a children’s book about surgery and set her heart on becoming a surgeon. Despite the fact there were no family links to medicine, and female surgeons were almost unheard of at the time, she applied to study medicine at the University Of Liverpool.
“I came from a working-class background where no one in the family had been to university. By the time I did my O levels, my mother accepted the fact that I was going to do this. She was really influential because she bought the syllabus for what would now be the A level.
Averil enjoys playing the cello (Philip Coburn)“My school wasn’t scientific, so she was concerned that we hadn’t covered the syllabus. She made sure everything had been covered.” After qualifying as a doctor in 1960, Averil trained as a vascular surgeon and became a consultant in Liverpool’s Broadgreen Hospital, and later at Hillingdon Hospital. She joined St Mary’s Hospital in London 10 years later, and in 1993 was appointed professor of surgery – the first woman in Britain to attain the position.
And while she never doubted her ability, male colleagues did. At the time, women were expected to choose between marriage and career. When she announced to a senior surgeon that she planned to marry her architect boyfriend in 1960, he replied, “What a pity. You had such a promising career.”
Averil reflects, “I said, ‘I’m not going to stop just because I’m getting married.’ He didn’t mean any harm. It was just a sign of the times.” Averil also encountered male patients that would ask to speak to the “surgeon doing the operation” and would be shocked to discover it was her.
“The occasional patient would say, ‘A woman can’t be a surgeon,’ and then when you say you are, they say, ‘Well, you must be particularly good because you’ve made it in a man’s world.’ Nobody said, ‘I’m not going to have a woman do an operation.’”
In the 1990s, Averil helped develop the stroke-preventing carotid endarterectomy – an intricate surgical procedure to unblock the carotid arteries. The surgery, now available throughout the UK, has helped save thousands of lives.
“I have had letters from patients, but more so since I wrote my book, Life In Her Hands. They find a way to find me, which is lovely.”
Time to reflect
Despite the thousands of intricate surgeries performed, Averil is very modest about her work. “It’s just plumbing that we do – new pipes for old,” she smiles. “It’s very lovely to win this Pride Of Britain award. But I don’t think of myself as a pioneer, I think of myself as a surgeon.”
After retiring in 2002, Averil – who has three step-children and six step-grandchildren from her second marriage to fellow surgeon John, who passed away in 2013 – became chair of the Stroke Association and was elected president of the BMA in 2009. She also learnt to play the cello.
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Averil became the UK's first female professor of surgery“To take up the cello was probably the best decision I made in retirement. It was also a bit of a crazy decision. When you retire at 65, you can carry heavy stuff on your back, but the older you get, the heavier it becomes.”
At 86, Averil is still working, giving presentations about her life and work. On the morning of the Pride Of Britain Awards, she’s speaking to medical students at the University Of Liverpool before getting the train back to London where she lives. So does she plan to slow down any time soon?
“I very definitely think I should be stopping working quite soon, actually. I keep saying that to myself and then I don’t,” she says, laughing.
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