2013: Jane Somerville, London, Storbritannien

”50 years with cardiac surgeons”

Jane Somerville was born in London into an intellectual family. Her father was a theatre critic. Her mother worked for Vogue. During World War II, Dr. Somerville was sent to a boy’s school and she subsequently was accepted by Guy’s Medical School when it was only the third year that female students were admitted. Perhaps this background has partly caused Dr. Somerville to become one of the very rare who sees what is between and what is beyond. Places to discover and connect. As a medical student she had the opportunity to encounter Dr. Blalock who inspired her to turn her attention to the heart. Following a short detour into cardiac surgery she found her true vocation, and later on her husband Dr. Walter Somerville, in cardiology. Fascinated by congenital heart disease she soon recognized that following pediatric cardiac surgery there was an increasing group of adolescents and adults with congenital heart disease. Dr. Somerville thus just about singlehanded created the new medical concept GUCH - grown-up congenital heart. Not only seeing the call for collected knowledge and skills around these conditions she understood the special needs of the patients and created the first ward in the world dedicated to children and adolescents with congenital heart disease. Young doctors came from all over the globe to London to study for Dr. Somerville and she still goes around the world to teach. Her ex-fellows, called Unicorns, scattered around the planet, care for patients every day in her spirit. The Swedish Heart Association is an association aiming at unifying the different specialties around the heart, building knowledge always in the interest of the patients. Dr. Somerville was there long before.