29 Facts About Lucille Teasdale-Corti

Lucille Teasdale-Corti's father was a generous butcher in Montreal's working-class, East End.

Lucille Teasdale-Corti won a scholarship to enter the University of Montreal's Faculty of Medicine in 1950.

Lucille Teasdale-Corti already had postgraduate specializations in Radiology and Neuropsychiatry, both at University of Milano.

Lucille Teasdale-Corti carried out her first two years at Hopital Maisonneuve and Hopital Hotel-Dieu, both in Montreal.

In 1960 Lucille Teasdale-Corti Teasdale traveled to France to carry out her final internship year at the Hopital de la Conception in Marseille.

Lucille Teasdale-Corti was preparing the first air cargo of equipment to be airlifted by the Italian Air Force, which was then involved in the UN Mission to the Congo, and Piero invited Lucille to go with him "just for a couple of months" to start the surgical activity.

Lucille Teasdale-Corti accepted and travelled to Uganda on the same Italian Air Force plane.

Lucille Teasdale-Corti was referred to one of the surgeons of the capital's Mulago University Hospital, who interviewed her and authorized her to go straight to Lacor.

When Lucille Teasdale-Corti joined Lacor, the hospital had a 40-bed maternity ward and an outpatient department, while other departments, including the operating room, were under construction.

Lucille Teasdale-Corti returned to Uganda in December 1961 after accepting Piero's marriage proposal.

On 9 October 1962, Uganda achieved independence and on 17 November 1962, Lucille Teasdale-Corti gave birth to her only child, daughter Dominique, whom locals named Atim.

From this time Lucille Teasdale-Corti would be known locally as "min Atim," mother of Atim.

For more than 20 years, Piero and Lucille Teasdale-Corti were responsible for the initial 3 months training of newly graduated Italian doctors deciding to carry out two years' civil service instead of the compulsory one-year military service.

Piero and Lucille Teasdale-Corti had to decide whether to leave, as most expatriates did, or to find a way of keeping the hospital running.

Lucille Teasdale-Corti was sent to one of her aunts in Italy and then to a boarding school in Kenya, from where she could travel back to Uganda three times a year for her holidays.

Lucille Teasdale-Corti found herself undertaking an unprecedented number of operations as a result of the war and the ensuing vendettas among tribes.

Lucille Teasdale-Corti started experiencing the first symptoms of what would later be recognized as opportunistic diseases linked to AIDS.

Lucille Teasdale-Corti was on the frontline of training these young doctors.

Piero and Lucille Teasdale-Corti were held at gunpoint several times within their home, the residence within the compound closest to the hospital gate.

In that year, the rebels entered the hospital one night looking for "Dr Corti and Min Atim," Piero and Lucille Teasdale-Corti, who had just left on holiday.

Piero and Lucille Teasdale-Corti returned immediately and decided to close down the hospital.

Lucille Teasdale-Corti Teasdale was diagnosed with AIDS in 1985, when the first tests became available in Italy.

Lucille Teasdale-Corti told her that her previous opportunistic diseases were indicative of her condition.

Lucille Teasdale-Corti told her that morale was important and she could continue her clinical work.

Lucille Teasdale-Corti suffered from a series of complications, from the ever-present oral candidiasis that made eating difficult, to severe conditions like Addison's Disease and Pneumocystis Carinii pleumonia, which caused Piero to rush her to London then to Milano to overcome the crises.

Lucille Teasdale-Corti was sometimes too weak to get up in the morning so Piero or others placed an IV line to rehydrate her.

Lucille Teasdale-Corti died in their home in Besana in Brianza on 1 August 1996.

The funeral service for Lucille Teasdale-Corti was held in the nearby Cathedral and was attended by hundreds.

Lucille Teasdale-Corti was interred in one of the hospital's courtyards.