Introducing #FellowsFriday
Today we’re
launching a new social media initiative to celebrate some of the inspirational
Fellows who are part of RCPI. Each week we will be delving
into the archives and spotlighting one of our Fellows from the past who helped
to blaze a trail. And we’ll also be
looking to the future of medicine and profiling some of our current
inspirational Fellows.
Celebrating our past
For our inaugural Fellows Friday we have picked Mary Hearn, first female Fellow of RCPI.
Born Mary Cummins in 1891, she studied medicine in UCC where her father was Professor of Medicine. Mary left UCC in 1911 when she married the Rev Robert Hearn. After the birth of two children and with her husband’s support, she returned to UCC and graduated MB in 1919 and MD in 1922.
Dr Hearn worked at the Cork North Infirmary and Victoria Hospital, as well as running a private gynecological practice. She received Membership of RCPI in 1922 and became our first female Fellow in 1924. Outside of medicine Hearn was a keen hockey player, representing Ireland.
Dr Mary Hearn died in 1969, at the Victoria Hospital where she had spent most of her life. A library for the hospital nurses was created in her memory. The research room in the College’s home on Kildare Street is named after her.
Looking
forward
Our first Fellows Friday candidate is Prof Mary
Higgins who became a Fellow of RCPI in October 2019, she is also a Censor
on the RCPI Council.
Prof
Higgins graduated from University College Dublin in 2000 and completed her
training in Obstetrics and Gynecology in Ireland, gaining membership of the
RCPI and Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (UK) in 2005. She
completed a MSc in University of Oxford and gained further research experience
by a MD (Diabetes) from UCD. She then
worked in Canada in the area of Maternal Fetal Medicine and returned to Ireland
to her current post, as Associate Professor in University College Dublin and a
consultant Obstetrician/Gynaecologist in the National Maternity Hospital.
As a
Principal Investigator in the UCD Perinatal Research Centre she has more than
100 publications and supervises PhD, MD, MSc and undergraduate students. Prof
Higgins is a ministerial appointee to the Slaintecare Medical Advisory Council,
and an active member of the National Perinatal Morbidity Centre committee on
Severe Maternal Morbidity, working groups in the National Women’s Council as
well as being an advocate for women’s health. She is currently completing a
Masters in Medical Education and a Diploma in Entrepreneurial Education.