Professor Jane Somerville has accomplished much throughout her career as a world leading cardiologist. She was one of the earliest to recognise the importance of caring for the growing number of people born with a heart condition living to adulthood and developed the idea of ‘GUCH’ — Grown up Congenital Heart Disease. She also pioneered GUCH care in the UK and Europe and has trained more fellows in congenital heart disease than any other physician, amassing a large group of ex-fellows called the Unicorns.

Speaking to the journal, Clinical Cardiology, Professor Somerville has previously said that her attitudes towards men, desire for equality and eventual success in the field of congenital heart disease has its origins while she was at school during World War II.

It was while the bombs were devastating London during the early days of the blitz that Jane spent three years, with five other girls, attending a boy’s preparatory school. Maintaining that this environment is what shaped her life and later interactions with the male-dominated medical profession, she believes this was the best education you could have if you wanted to enter into a predominantly male profession.

She added that after reading medical books at the age of thirteen, she became determined to study medicine. Not letting anything stand in her way, she worked hard and eventually went on to study at Guy’s Hospital Medical School, where over 90% of the students were male.

Out of the blue

Professor Somerville decided to become a cardiac surgeon after attending US surgeon Dr Alfred Blalock’s lectures on his successes with a pioneering “blue baby” operation that relieved the effects caused by tetralogy of fallot, a congenital heart defect, in which blood bypasses the lungs depriving it of oxygen. The development of this operation transformed the lives of thousands babies and became the birth of the modern era of cardiac surgery. Untreated, this condition can lead to a wide variety of issues including — bluish skin, blood clots, infection, heart failure and even death.

Following many years of cardiac surgery, Guy’s Hospital hired her to become their first female medical registrar and in 1959 she was appointed to the National Heart Hospital.This allowed her to eventually take part in groundbreaking work, including being the physician for the first heart transplant in the UK.

After becoming a cardiologist, she became fascinated by congenital heart disease and paediatric cardiology and spent time at Great Ormond Street learning more about infant medicine.