Born: 14 March 1916, Australia
Died: 27 January 2004
Country most active: Australia
Also known as: NA
This biography has been shared from The Encyclopedia of Australian Science and Innovation, published by the Centre for Transformative Innovation, Swinburne University of Technology, under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Lorna Sisely was only the second person in Australia to receive a fellowship for the Royal Australian College of Surgeons (FRACS). After starting a science degree at the University of Melbourne, she switched medicine in 1937 and won top awards throughout her studies. Sisely’s first position was as a Resident at St Vincent’s Hospital in Melbourne where she became assistant to the senior surgeon. In 1947 she moved to the Queen Victoria Hospital and also took up the post of Anatomy Demonstrator at the University of Melbourne where she completed her Master of Surgery there. Sisely was the first female to win the A. Gordon Craig Travelling Scholarship which she used to study female urology and surgery overseas. Upon returning to Australia she became Senior Surgeon at the Queen Victoria Hospital – a position she held for thirty four years – and in 1980 established the hospital’s first breast clinic.
Chronology
1942 – 1944
Career position – Junior Resident Medical Officer and Senior Resident Medical Officer at St Vincent’s Hospital, Melbourne
1947 – 1949
Career position – Demonstrator in the Department of Anatomy and Pathology, University of Melbourne
1947 – 1949
Career position – Honorary Assistant Surgeon at the Children’s Hospital, Victoria
1947 – 1981
Career position – Surgeon Senior Staff at the Queen Victoria Medical Centre (previously the Queen Victoria Hospital), Victoria
1949
Award – Gordon Craig Scholarship in Surgery
1962 –
Career position – Member of the American College of Surgeons
1964 – 1981
Career position – Member of the Anti-Cancer Council of Victoria
1979
Career position – Founder and Consultant Surgeon in the Breast Clinic at Monash Medical Centre, Victoria
1980
Award – Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE)
1980 – 1981
Career position – Dean of the Clinical School in the Queen Victoria Medical Centre, Monash University, Victoria
1981 –
Career position – Consultant Surgeon at the Monash Medical Centre, Victoria