Rosemary Rue

Dame Dr. Rosemary Rue, DBE, DCH, FRCP, FFPHM, FRCPsych, FRCS (b. 1928, Essex, England - d. 24 December 2004) was a physician and the former regional general manager and regional medical officer of the Oxford Regional Health Authority.

She was also:
* President of the Medical Women’s Federation (1982 - 1983)
* President of the Faculty of Community Medicine of the Royal College of Physicians (1986 - 1989)
* President of the British Medical Association (1990 - 1991)
* Founding Fellow of Green College, Oxford
* One-time president of the BMA
* Awarded the Jenner Medal of the Royal Society of Health

Background

She was born Elsie Rosemary Laurence in Essex in 1928. Her family moved to London when she was five, and at age 11 she was evacuated during the Blitz to stay with relatives in Devonshire, where she contracted tuberculosis and peritonitis. It was while she was convalescing that she decided on a career in medicine, entering the all-woman Royal Free Medical School in London when she was 17.

In 1950 she married Roger Rue, a pilot instructor in the Royal Air Force. When she told the medical school dean that she was changing her name, she was told that she could not stay at the school if she was married. She was instead accepted at the University of Oxford, qualifying in 1951 after taking the University of London exams.

Her first job was at a long stay hospital in Cowley Road on the outskirts of Oxford. She did not tell her employers that she had a husband or a newborn son, after being rejected from hospitals elsewhere in Oxford on the grounds that they did not employ married women. She was allowed one afternoon a week off for a psychiatry course. But the hospital sacked her on the spot when someone informed her bosses about the husband and the baby.

She moved into general practice in 1952 after being offered a job in Oxford's industrial district by a general practitioner from her psychiatry course. It was there, in 1954, that she contracted polio from a patient, becoming the last person in Oxford to get it. The disease left her with one useless leg; even with her crutches and callipers she could barely walk or carry a medical bag. For a while she taught in a girls' school. When she went (by car) for interview for medical jobs, if she found that she could not climb the steps to the front door, she would phone and say that she had accepted another post. By 1955 she and her husband had separated, and she went to live in Hertfordshire with her parents, whose general practitioner had recently had a leg amputated and needed a partner. He told her that he was pleased to find her—together they had two legs. She enjoyed the work, which was diverse and demanding, with plenty of home visits and home births. She was also medical officer to the Royal Air Force at Bovingdon, Hertfordshire.

In the early 1960s new money was allocated by the government to rebuild the crumbling medical system in the UK, Dr. Rue saw that Oxford got its share, and oversaw the building of new hospitals in Swindon, Reading, and Milton Keynes. Realising that all hospitals had basic architectural needs, such as the width of corridors and the utilities in the panel at the bed heads, she designed basic modules that could be incorporated into every hospital.

In 1960 she became assistant county medical officer for Hertfordshire and a part time paediatrician in Watford. During this time she spent an academic term at the Institute of Child Health in London. She went on to be a House Officer at the United Oxford Hospitals. It was the move into public health and specifically community medicine that gave her the opportunity to contribute to a better National Health Service, for (and with) which she fought some of her most significant battles.

In 1972 she became one of the founders of the Faculty of Community Health (now the Faculty of Public Health), which brought together academic bodies such as the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, community health doctors, and organisations such as the Public Health Laboratory Service.She was Regional Medical Officer from 1973 to 1984 and Regional General Manager from 1984-1988.

Dr. Rue's most important contribution was the part time training scheme for women doctors who wanted to become qualified specialists. It started in Oxford and soon spread nationwide, and the women became known as "Rosemary's babies". She had to persuade the royal colleges to cooperate with the scheme, and did so by convincing consultants that they could adapt their ways to accommodate it.

She died of bowel cancer on Christmas Eve 2004, aged 76, and was survived by her two sons.

External links

* [http://bmj.bmjjournals.com/cgi/reprint/330/7484/199.pdf]
* [http://www.medsci.ox.ac.uk/gazette/previousissues/55vol1/Part19]