Sheila Sherlock

Dame Sheila Patricia Violet Sherlock, DBE (b. March 31 1918, Dublin - d. December 30 2001) was a British physician, hepatologist and teacher.

As the first professor of medicine at London's Royal Free Hospital School of Medicine, she maintained its tradition of powerful and charismatic female pioneers. Under her leadership, the department became a focal point for trainees in hepatology from virtually every country, and many of today's leaders in the field spent part, or all, of their training under her. Her influence extended to colleagues in surgery, radiology and pathology, and many of them became liver specialists in their own fields.

Sherlock was also active nationally and internationally: in the Royal College of Physicians, as president of the British Society of Gastroenterology, as editor of Gut and the Journal of Hepatology, and as a founder - and later president - of the British Liver Trust, a national charity supporting liver research and patients with liver disease.

Brought up in Folkestone, Sherlock attended Folkestone County School for Girls. In pre-WW2 Britain, female applicants to medical schools were at a great disadvantage, and she was rejected by several colleges before gaining a place at Edinburgh University in 1936. Her outstanding abilities soon became obvious, however, and she graduated in 1941, only the second woman to be awarded the Ettles scholarship for finishing top of her year.

She was happily married to Geraint James, a physician, who survived her, for 50 years. They had two daughters, the younger of whom, Auriole, a Baptist minister, conducted her funeral with memorable. Her health declined in the last years of her life, but her specific cause of death, aged 83, was never disclosed.