Diana Jean Kinloch Beck (29 June 1900 or 1902 – 3 March 1956) was the first British female neurosurgeon. She established the neurosurgery service at the Middlesex Hospital in London. In 1952 she gained a public profile for performing life-saving surgery on A. A. Milne.
Beck was appointed consultant neurosurgeon at the Royal Free in 1943, but the next year the ongoing war forced her to move to Chase Farm Hospital and Bristol to provide neurosurgical advice to the emergency medical service for south-west England. She became a consultant neurosurgeon at Middlesex Hospital in 1947, making her the first female consultant at a London teaching hospital that did not admit women students.[1] At Middlesex, she was the first woman and the first neurosurgeon on staff,[5] as well as being the only consultant neurosurgeon in western Europe and North America at the time.[6] Beck set up and ran the neurosurgery service at Middlesex, and published important research on the management of intracerebral haemorrhage.[5]
In 1952 Beck received attention in the press for performing lifesaving surgery on A. A. Milne, the author of Winnie-the-Pooh, two months after he suffered a brain haemorrhage.[5]The Times praised her "remarkable piece of surgery".[5] According to his son Christopher, after the stroke and surgery he remained "partly paralyzed" with a "distinct change in character", though he survived a further three years.[7]
First female neurosurgeon
A 2008 profile in Neurosurgery credits Beck as the world's first female neurosurgeon. The claim has also been made for the Romanian Sofia Ionescu, although the author notes that Ionescu only finished medical school in 1945, when Beck was already working as a consultant in neurosurgery.[5]
^Beck's date of birth is reported as 1902 in national registers,[2] and on her blue plaque,[4] though the Dictionary of National Biography says 1900.[1]