11 Facts About Dermod MacCarthy

Dermod de la Chevallerie MacCarthy FRCP was a British paediatrician, notable for establishing a paediatric unit at Stoke Mandeville Hospital and conducting research into common disturbances in childhood and growth in deprived children.

Dermod MacCarthy was most notable for his work to encourage mothers to be with their children when in hospitals.

Dermod MacCarthy was educated at Gresham's School and upon finishing his education there began to train as a physician at St Bartholomew's Hospital, London, where he qualified in 1934.

Dermod MacCarthy took up a number of positions in medicine, before becoming a ship's doctor on a vessel travelling to the Far East.

In 1947, he married Marie-France Geoffroy-Dechaume, whom he had known since childhood, but it was only when Dermod MacCarthy was in his mid thirties that romance blossomed.

Dermod MacCarthy became a Resident at about the time of the start of the Blitz, and some of his earliest duties included organizing the evacuation of children from the hospital to outlying and countryside hospitals.

Dermod MacCarthy was selected to establish a series of children's wards, working initially in Aylesbury and then putting in units across the whole of Buckinghamshire, a task he continued to work on until 1976.

Dermod MacCarthy helped facilitate the movement by making an influential film with James Robertson, the second in the series, called Going to hospital with mother The film was filmed in the children's ward of Amersham Hospital.

Dermod MacCarthy later worked as an advisor to the newly established National Association for the Welfare of Children in Hospital.

In 1974, Dermod MacCarthy became president of the paediatric section of the Royal Society of Medicine, while a consultant paediatrician to the Institute of Child Psychology in London.

In 1982, Dermod MacCarthy received the prestigious James Spence Medal, named after Professor Sir James Calvert Spence, and is the highest award of the British Paediatric Association.