Vicky Veronica Clement-Jones (née Yip; 23 December 1948 – 30 July 1987) was a

Hong Kong Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China ( abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China on the eastern Pearl River Delt ...

-born English

physician A physician (American English), medical practitioner (Commonwealth English), medical doctor, or simply doctor, is a health professional who practices medicine, which is concerned with promoting, maintaining or restoring health through th ...

and

medical research Medical research (or biomedical research), also known as experimental medicine, encompasses a wide array of research, extending from "basic research" (also called ''bench science'' or ''bench research''), – involving fundamental scientif ...

er. Her own diagnosis with

ovarian cancer Ovarian cancer is a cancerous tumor of an ovary. It may originate from the ovary itself or more commonly from communicating nearby structures such as fallopian tubes or the inner lining of the abdomen. The ovary is made up of three different c ...

led her to found the British Association for Cancer United Patients (BACUP) in 1984.

Biography

Vicky Veronica Yip was born in 1948 in

to Teddy Yip, a Chinese businessman, and Susie Ho. In 1957, Yip and her four siblings moved with their mother to

East Grinstead East Grinstead is a town in West Sussex, England, near the East Sussex, Surrey, and Kent borders, south of London, northeast of Brighton, and northeast of the county town of Chichester. Situated in the extreme northeast of the county, the civ ...

West Sussex West Sussex is a county in South East England on the English Channel coast. The ceremonial county comprises the shire districts of Adur, Arun, Chichester, Horsham, and Mid Sussex, and the boroughs of Crawley and Worthing. Covering an ar ...

. She was educated at the Notre Dame Convent School in

Lingfield, Surrey Lingfield is a village and civil parish in the Tandridge district of Surrey, England, approximately south of London. Several buildings date from the Tudor period and the timber-frame medieval church is Grade I listed. The stone cage or old ...

, and East Grinstead County Grammar School. She graduated from Girton College, Cambridge in 1971 with a first in medical science, archaeology and anthropology, and went on to study medicine at

St Thomas's Hospital Medical School St Thomas's Hospital Medical School in London was one of the oldest and most prestigious medical schools in the UK. The school was absorbed to form part of King's College London. History It was part of one of the oldest hospitals in London, ...

. She married Timothy Clement-Jones in 1973 and graduated from St Thomas's with an

MB BCh 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 Kin ...

in 1974. After qualifying, she held house posts at St Thomas's and was eventually promoted to senior house physician in

neurology Neurology (from el, wikt:νεῦρον, νεῦρον (neûron), "string, nerve" and the suffix wikt:-logia, -logia, "study of") is the branch of specialty (medicine), medicine dealing with the diagnosis and treatment of all categories of co ...

and

thoracic medicine The thorax or chest is a part of the anatomy of humans, mammals, and other tetrapod animals located between the neck and the abdomen. In insects, crustaceans, and the extinct trilobites, the thorax is one of the three main divisions of the crea ...

. She was appointed a medical registrar at St Bartholomew's Hospital in 1976 and was awarded a bursary to research the

opioid peptide Opioid peptides are peptides that bind to opioid receptors in the brain; opiates and opioids mimic the effect of these peptides. Such peptides may be produced by the body itself, for example endorphins. The effects of these peptides vary, but th ...

s involved in responses to pain. After designing a radioimmunoassay for one of these peptides, her findings were published in ''

Nature Nature, in the broadest sense, is the physics, physical world or universe. "Nature" can refer to the phenomenon, phenomena of the physical world, and also to life in general. The study of nature is a large, if not the only, part of science. ...

''. Clement-Jones was diagnosed with

in 1982, at which point she said she "crossed the divide from doctor to patient". This led her to establish the British Association for Cancer United Patients (BACUP), an organisation to provide information, advice and emotional support to cancer patients. BACUP was registered as a charity in 1984 and later became the largest organisation of its kind in the United Kingdom. On 26 June 1987 she made an extended appearance on the British television discussion programme '' After Dark'', discussing ''"Killing With Care?"''. The following month - on 30 July - Clement-Jones died, aged 38, exactly five years from the day she was diagnosed with ovarian cancer.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Clement-Jones, Vicky 1948 births 1987 deaths 20th-century English medical doctors English medical researchers English health activists Hong Kong emigrants to England Deaths from ovarian cancer Deaths from cancer in England Fellows of the Royal College of Physicians Alumni of Girton College, Cambridge British neurologists Women neurologists Women medical researchers English women medical doctors Founders of charities Place of death missing Spouses of life peers 20th-century women physicians 20th-century English women 20th-century English people