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Introducing Dr Elizabeth Gordon
Dr Elizabeth Gordon FRCS doesn't trumpet her achievements. She is a precise woman who sees aesthetics, not just in music and art, but in the elegance and simplicity of the instruments which she uses for surgery. She loves the precision and delicacy of the instruments.
1) When did you decide to be a doctor?
I was reading my brother's Eagle comic. There was a description of an appendix operation, and I knew that's what I wanted to do. Never wavered.
2) Who are you role models?
The first was the surgeon I worked for, Harding Rains. He was my mentor, sponsor and role model. He judged you on merit and furthering your career was part of his job. He encouraged me to get the Edward Wilson Fellowship to go and study in Australia, at the Alfred Hospital in Victoria to do a year's research liver function.
3) When were you first aware that women may get different treatment?
About 10. I recognised the difference between priests and nuns. Women weren't allowed out in the street; they didn't have those freedoms. Obviously it was better to be a man. You have power and liberty I suppose.
4) Attitudes toward women surgeons/doctors
There was a very anti-women attitude towards surgeons. When I went to do a 2 week stint with a surgeon, he asked: Why do you want to be a surgeon, are you going to be a missionary?
5) Which part of your life was most memorable to you, and why?
Going to Australia: growing up and going growing away. Stepped off the plane in the sense that nobody knew me, no background.
6) How did you come to visit Vietnam?
The Australian government provided surgical teams in South Vietnam, 4 teams, one at a time. At the surgery we treated all people who came in regardless of were North or South. This was a proper hospital Bien Hoa. You could pick up the Viet Cong by their accent. I treated a man with gunshot wounds to his legs. I fixed him up and the same day he was removed from the hospital, by the Vietnamese police. That's when I became aware of torture. When I returned to England the British arm of Amnesty were waiting.
Five of us got together and set up the Medical Group of Amnesty International, in 1975. At that time it was independent of Amnesty. There were too many countries with torture for Amnesty to be able to fund investigating them all.
Previously Amnesty had sent me to East Africa for a week, with a forensic pathologist from Cardiff. Bernard Knight. We were being asked to see people who'd escaped from Uganda, their injuries were the basis of the Amnesty Uganda Report: The British supported Idi Amin, graduate of Sandhurst. Bernard and I both learnt a lot from each other. There was also a meeting with a doctor from Chile about the perversion of the medical profession in Chile and the misuse of psychiatric treatment in USSR.
In 1985 the Medical Group became the Medical foundation for Victims of torture.
7) Which event/job/occasion most surprised you?
Having an anti-female attitude persisting into 1970s in my profession. When I applied for my consultancy, I was warned as that a woman, I was too left wing, and there was a strong masonic element in the profession. At the interview panel it was all men, not even a female notetaker.
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