12 Facts About Gwen Fleming

Mary Gwenyth "Gwen" Fleming was an Australian medical doctor who specialised in thoracic medicine and served in the Royal Australian Army Medical Corps during the Second World War.

Gwen Fleming's father John Lusby was a school principal and classics master in country NSW, and so the family moved around the state until his eventual teaching appointment in Sydney.

Gwen Fleming insisted on his daughters acquiring a high education.

Gwen Fleming achieved her NSW Leaving Certificate at St George Girls High School, Kogarah in 1932 and her Baccalaureate in 1933.

Gwen Fleming graduated as MBBS from the University of Sydney in 1939 and was among the first group of women medical graduates to pass through the University and Sancta Sophia College.

Gwen Fleming joined the Royal Australian Army Medical Corps and, along with Captain Helen Braye, was appointed to the staff of the 113th Australian General Hospital at Concord in Feb 1942, where Captains Margery Scott-Young and Eileen Scott-Young were already serving as the only female doctors.

In May 1942, The Daily Telegraph reported that "for the first time in the history of Australia, women doctors have been enlisted in the AIF", and that Gwen Fleming was one of six serving at Concord.

In 1945, at the conclusion of the war, Gwen Fleming became one of the first women granted membership of the Royal Australasian College of Physicians.

Gwen Fleming's career was largely interrupted by caring for their six children - Margaret, Paul, Justin, Judith, James and Peter - but in 1973 she nonetheless appointed Fellow of the Royal Australasian College of Physicians.

Gwen Fleming's husband established a career as a pioneer vascular surgeon and founded the Australian Association of Surgeons, but his shock death of a heart attack in 1974 brought Gwen back into medical practice.

Gwen Fleming took up a post at a cancer clinic on Macquarie Street while teaching at St Vincent's Hospital.

Gwen Fleming retired at 77 years old and died in 2011.