Papers of Dr June Scudamore, FRCOG

Papers relating to the professional medical career of Dr June Scudamore, including her career in cancer research and work in Canada.

Dr June Scudamore, a consultant gynaecologist and Fellow of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, trained at Bedford College for Women and then at University College Hospital in London for five years, where she obtained the McGrath Scholarship in Obstetrics and Gynaecology (1949). She was also awarded the Kathleen Bush Harman Prize, presented by the British Medical Association in 1956 for research work aimed at the diminution of loss of life and health associated with child-bearing.

After posts at hospitals in England as house surgeon, general surgeon, and clinical pathologist - these hospitals included Bath, London, Birmingham, Sheffield and Manchester - she won the Rickman Godlee Travelling Scholarship of the University College Hospital in 1957, combined with the appointment as Research Fellow at the University of Chicago clinics. She became the protegee of Professor William Nixon of University College Hospital, who became her mentor and encouraged her in her career. The research was for the study of Exfoliative Cytology (the study of cells), with the associated out-patient clinic follow-up.

Dr Scudamore became a full-time cytologist in 1960 at the Hamilton General Hospital in Canada and in 1965 became Head of Department of Exfoliative Cytology at the Henderson General Hospital, plus a Research Fellow at the Ontario Cancer Foundation. On her departure from this position in 1968, she set up her own Physicians Cytology Laboratory, where she developed new techniques in the early discovery of cancers, which were used all over Ontario, saving the lives of thousands of women. She lectured in Ontario and Chicago, presented papers, organised workshops and meetings, to develop these new methods of detection, which are now part of the early treatment of cancer in Canada and elsewhere.

Dr Scudamore was elected to Membership of the International Academy of Cytology, as well as to the Fellowship of the RCOG in 1975 and to the International Academy of Cytology in 1976. She was also a member of the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, which won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1985. She returned to England in 2006.

As received.

Open to researchers by appointment, Monday to Friday, 10am to 4pm. mailto: archives@rcog.org.uk

Gift to the RCOG Archive by Miss Anne Scudamore between September 2008 and June 2010.

Detailed file level descriptions are available from the College Archivist.

New accessions catalogued in September 2011 by Penny Bonning, Archivist, together with updating of previous catalogue entry.

Copyright is vested in the estate of Dr June Scudamore.

Reproductions are available at the discretion of the College Archivist.

Donated to the RCOG by the sister of June Scudamore, Miss Anne Scudamore, in September 2008. An additional donation of material was made in June 2010 (Accession number 2010/2). In both cases, the material was passed to the College Archive by the former College Librarian.