Content area
Full Text
Biography
Wendy Savage, a staunch advocate of women's rights in fertility, abortion, and childbirth, was an obstetrician and gynaecologist who in 1985 was the victim of a miscarriage of justice. Suspended from the London Hospital Medical College after allegations of incompetence, she won her job back after a high profile inquiry found the charges groundless. She served for many years on the General Medical Council and is president of Keep Our NHS Public, a pressure group that opposes private contractors providing NHS care. She has also been press officer at Doctors for a Woman's Choice on Abortion since 1977.
What was your earliest ambition?
When I was 14 I moved to a bigger school and started sciences. I loved chemistry, and I thought I would be a research chemist.
Who has been your biggest inspiration?
I'm not sure that I have ever been inspired. After my first year at Cambridge, when I saw what chemists did, I woke up one morning and decided to be a doctor. As a student, Donald Hunter impressed me with his passion for industrial medicine. Two excellent role models were Angelo Caroli, who taught me surgery in Awo-Amamma in eastern Nigeria, and Valerie Thompson-the first woman senior registrar at the London Hospital in obstetrics and gynaecology, and later my consultant at the Royal Free Hospital-who introduced me to psychosexual medicine.
What was the worst mistake in your career?
Not realising that the person who was supposed to be arranging for me to go to the US to work in a service for poor women in East Boston couldn't do it....