Joselen Ransome’s Pioneering Life and Generosity

A tribute to Joselen Ransome (8’s 1935-43), By Janet Porter (2s 57-65)

‘It comes to few of us to be able to fulfil The Pledge in such a striking way as Joselen Ransome, who left £3.7M to the school on her death in 1922 at the age of 97.  But then it comes to few of us to rise to the top of an overwhelmingly male profession as she did.

Her background is almost a blueprint for a Christ’s Hospital student.  Born in Sussex on October 28 1924, her father was a local grocer and second generation German immigrant who had changed his name to Ransome by deed poll in 1919.  Her mother, 40 at the time of her birth, appears to have lived with her parents until her marriage in 1922 and has no record of paid employment. Joselen’s parents separated when she was four and she and her mother moved to London. Her father died of TB when she was nine. She won a scholarship to Christ’s Hospital in 1935 to the great pride of her junior school, the delightfully named Shrubbery Preparatory School in Norwood, South London.  Her mother’s only income was a small allowance from her parents and Joselen, thereafter always known as Jo, received a full bursary throughout her time at Christ’s Hospital.

Joselen Thrived at Hertford Both Generally and Academically

She competed in diving, was a member of the second eleven cricket team and captained the second eleven hockey team.  In her upper sixth year she became one of the two monitors in Ward 8.  She even performed in the English recitation at her final Speech Day (perhaps reflecting the elocution certificate she had apparently gained at primary school).

She clearly determined early on a career in medicine.  She matriculated (equivalent stage to GCSE but considerably more difficult!) in 1940 and in 1942 took “Highers” (equivalent to A level) in physics, chemistry, botany and zoology, which gave her exemption from the first year of medical school study.

Joselen stayed on into the third year sixth – necessary at that time to sit Oxbridge entrance exams  – and applied for a scholarship in natural sciences at Newnham. Unfortunately she came some way down the list of marks but was ‘put on medical waiting list’.

Meanwhile, she obtained a scholarship from The Clothworkers Company livery company and a place at the London School of Medicine for Women, source of most women doctors at the time, which by the time she qualified, had become The Royal Free Hospital.

Photo: Summer 1936, Hertford Ward 8 (records show Joselen is bottom right)

The British Association of Medical Students

In 1948 she became secretary of the British Association of Medical Students. I think it likely that this post would have been full time and required her to take a break from her course and this would explain why she took six years to qualify. It is the only example we have found of her involvement in medical politics but the incentive of an inside view of the start of the NHS in July 1948 must have been considerable. It is a shame she did not write about it.

Qualifying as a Doctor

In 1949 Joselen qualified as a doctor twice.  Taking the Society of Apothecaries exam MRCS LRCP, known as ‘conjoint’, was seen for many years as an insurance policy against failing the University of London exam because it was seen as easier and could be taken as multiple separate subjects.  She got a prize in gynaecology. She then passed the London MB.BS exam as well and was put on the Medical Register in August 1949

Pre-registration house jobs did not become compulsory until 1953 but Jo already, it seems, had aspirations to do surgery, apparently undeterred by the notorious misogyny of the surgical establishment . So she probably did do house officer posts at her teaching hospital for the sake of her CV and although such posts were minimally paid and involved working 100 hours a week or more.

A Career in ENT

She had even already settled on her chosen surgical specialty . She wanted to do ear, nose and throat (ENT) surgery and her next job was in the ENT department of the Radcliffe Infirmary at Oxford – a suitably prestigious start.

ENT – Ear, nose and throat surgery (now known as otorhinolaryngology – doctors preferring Greek to English!) was developing and expanding rapidly at this time with the increase in effective drugs, particularly antibiotics, and improvements in surgical and anaesthetic techniques. It was also seen as one of the more appropriate specialties for a woman.  It was not going to be easy though. There were few female hospital consultants in any specialty and only a handful of surgeons. Only 2% of Fellows of the Royal College of Surgeons were women.

There was no proper structure to specialist training and it often took 10 years to become a consultant.  It was common to get “stuck “at registrar grade, unable to pass the requisite exams, or at Senior Registrar level unable to secure the hugely competitive consultant post.

Jo must have been academically able as well as surgically skilled to progress as she did. By 1953 she was back in London as a Registrar at the Royal National Throat Nose and Ear hospital.

The next milestone however was personal not medical as in 1955 at the age of 31 she married a fellow ENT surgeon Eliasz Zwiefach, known as Elek.  His background was even more remarkable than hers.  He had qualified as an ENT surgeon in Poland before the war and was taken prisoner by the invading Soviet army, surviving a Siberian camp and transfer to General Ander’s Free Polish forces in Palestine.  In 1951 he had gained British specialist qualifications and in 1955 was working in the Professorial unit of the Institute of laryngology and otology.  He had published several academic papers.  He also held Consultant posts at the West Middlesex and St John’s Hospital.

Meanwhile Jo needed to become a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons before she could progress.  It was a notoriously difficult exam with an average pass rate of less than 30%. In 1958 there were 359 candidates of whom 103 passed – only two of them women.  Jo was one of 23 who took the ENT version of the exam and one of the 7 who passed.

The fellowship was in her maiden name which she retained professionally throughout her life – and as an FRCS she would have dropped the “Doctor” and become “Miss Ransome”

In 1959 she became Senior Registrar at the Royal Free and subsequently became Consultant in ENT at St Stephen’s Hospital and later Senior consultant at the Metropolitan ENT hospital based at St Mary Abbotts hospital. She also had her own private practice in Harley Street.

In the early 60s she and Elek moved to 107 Abbotsbury Road – a spacious house in Holland Park where they lived until Elek’s death in 1987.

By the 1970s ENT encompassed a huge range of topics and consultants began to specialise in different areas.  Jo’s interest lay in the ear and in disorders of hearing.  She was an active academic researcher and published in leading medical journals on a range of topics, mostly concerning hearing loss.  In 1964, while still at The Royal Free, the British Medical Journal published a letter from her in which she took issue with a prominent rheumatologist on the possible reasons for deafness in rheumatoid arthritis, which she was currently studying. It is a model of clinical reasoning!

She edited ‘Recent advance in Otolaryngology‘ in 1973 and co-edited the second edition in 1978. In 1977 she published a lengthy paper in the Journal of Laryngology and Otology on impedance measurements and advances in audiometry. She also contributed chapters on ear surgery to ‘Operative Surgery in ENT‘ in 1979.

She and Elek had separate areas of academic expertise but did sign a joint letter to the British Medical Journal in 1966  in support of the use of specialised recovery areas for surgery – then a new idea.

She took an active part in the development of her specialty, becoming a member of the British Association of Otolaryngologists (Now ENT UK) and its Honorary Secretary  from 1979 – 85. On the occasion of her subsequently being made an honorary member of the organisation tribute was paid by a then very prominent ENT surgeon who had worked for her between 1984 and 1986 and had found her very supportive.

Around 1980 she moved to a consultant post at Charing Cross – probably to avoid the repeated reorganisations of the hospitals in her area as the new Chelsea and Westminster swallowed up all the smaller hospitals where she and Elek had worked.

Retirement

In 1988, by that time retired,  Jo married again.  Thomas Heron was a Retired Consultant Physician and they lived initially in Sussex but subsequently returned to Wimbledon where Thomas died in 2008 and Jo lived for the rest of her life.

Jo maintained links with Christ’s Hospital, returning in the early stages of her career to encourage other Hertford girls into medicine and remaining a member of the Christ’s Hospital Old Girls Association (CHOGA). 

Photo: CHOGA reunion 2006 – Joselen (right) with Catherine Morgan (Goodyear) (8s 36-43) and Georgina Lynch (Harvey) (8s 32-39)

Joselen gave Christ’s Hospital no prior notice of her kind legacy – simply directing that the whole of her Trust Fund be given to Christ’s Hospital – but her solicitor reported that she had fond memories of CH and remained appreciative of the opportunities it had afforded her.

The picture painted by the frustratingly limited record of her life is of a highly competent surgeon and a supportive teacher who remained personally modest and kind. I wish I could have met her.’

Thank you to Janet Porter for her extensive research on Joselen for this article and CH Museum for photos.