Carys Bannister

Carys Margaret Bannister (1935 – 20 August 2010) was the second female neurosurgeon to be appointed in the United Kingdom. Born in Brazil to Welsh parents, she moved to England as a teenager and trained in surgery after qualifying as a doctor. She spent most of her career as a consultant neurosurgeon at North Manchester General Hospital and as a researcher at the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology. She specialised in treating disorders of the cerebral circulation, spina bifida, and hydrocephalus.

Early life Carys Bannister was born in Recife, Brazil, in 1935. Her parents were Welsh and had moved from Aberystwyth to Brazil when her father took up an engineering job with the Great Western Brazilian Railway. After Bannister was born, the family moved to São Paulo and later Rio de Janeiro, where Bannister and her sister attended an American school. When their father was assigned to work in the Brazilian countryside, both daughters were sent back to Britain; Bannister was fifteen at the time. She was educated at a boarding school in Bramley, Surrey and Guildford County Technical College. In 1953, she won a state scholarship and successfully applied to Charing Cross Hospital Medical School, graduating in 1958.

Honours Bannister received an OBE in 1999 for her services to neurosurgery in Manchester.