Lena McEwan
MBBS
Bachelor of Medicine, Bachelor of Surgery ( la, Medicinae Baccalaureus, Baccalaureus Chirurgiae; abbreviated most commonly MBBS), is the primary medical degree awarded by medical schools in countries that follow the tradition of the United King ...
MS FRCS FRACS, (11 August 1927 - 4 October 2011) was the first woman to specialise in plastic surgery in Australia. She achieved her
MBBS
Bachelor of Medicine, Bachelor of Surgery ( la, Medicinae Baccalaureus, Baccalaureus Chirurgiae; abbreviated most commonly MBBS), is the primary medical degree awarded by medical schools in countries that follow the tradition of the United King ...
in 1949 from the University of Adelaide. Lena trained in Australia and England, completing her
FRCS(Eng) Diploma in 1954 before returning to Adelaide and completing the
FRACS Diploma in 1958. Lena published notable research on median and ulnar nerve injuries in 1962 which influenced future surgical practice. She was also president of the
Victorian Medical Women's Society. Lena was also part of an interdisciplinary team formed in 1976 to work on gender reassignment who published their work in 1986: ''Male-to-Female Surgical Genital Reassignment.''
Lena was born on 11 August 1927 in South Australia and her parents had recently immigrated from Glasgow. She was educated at
St Peter's Collegiate Girls School and the University of Adelaide.
Lena McEwan worked in the following hospitals:
*
Royal Adelaide Hospital (Resident Medical Officer; Senior Surgical Registrar and Honorary Clinical Assistant)
*
Birmingham Accident Hospital (Registrar)
*
Royal London Hospital (Registrar)
*
Royal Melbourne Hospital
The Royal Melbourne Hospital (RMH), located in Parkville, Victoria, an inner suburb of Melbourne, is one of Australia's leading public hospitals. It is a major teaching hospital for tertiary health care with a reputation in clinical research. Th ...
(Associate then Second Assistant of Benjamin Rank)
* Prince Henry's Hospital (Assistant Plastic Surgeon)
*
Queen Victoria Memorial Hospital
Queen or QUEEN may refer to:
Monarchy
* Queen regnant, a female monarch of a Kingdom
** List of queens regnant
* Queen consort, the wife of a reigning king
* Queen dowager, the widow of a king
* Queen mother, a queen dowager who is the mot ...
(Honorary appointment as Plastic Surgeon)
*
Queen Victoria Medical Centre
*
Peter MacCallum Cancer Hospital (became Head of the Skin Unit in 1982 and retired in 1992)
She moved to Torquay Victoria after her retirement and died from ovarian cancer on 4 October 2011.
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:McEwan, Lena
20th-century Australian medical doctors
1927 births
2011 deaths
Australian women surgeons
20th-century surgeons