Dossibai Patell

Career

In 1924, she presented a paper on infant mortality, stating her opinion that more than two thirds of infant deaths were preventable and petitioned for reducing these fatalities. She also considered maternal mortality and advocated supervision throughout pregnancy and childbirth and the forming of maternal and child welfare centres.

During the Second World War, she served in the Bombay Branch of the Red Cross Society.

She co-founded the Bombay Obstetric and Gynaecological Society, becoming its honorary joint secretary and later its president. She worked to establish other such societies across India which came together to form the Federation of Obstetric and Gynaecological Societies of India, of which she also became president.

Death and legacy She died on 4 February 1960.

In 2018, Patell, along with the RCP's first female member, Ivy Evelyn Woodward, featured in the RCP's 500 year celebratory exhibition "This Vexed Question: 500 years of women in medicine".

Selected publications "Infant Mortality, its causes and how to Remedy it" in Report of the All India Social Service Conference. Bombay: Servants of India Society, 1924. pp. 65–75. "Critical Analysis of 669 Caesarian Sections in the Nowrosji Wadi Maternity Hospital, Bombay" , Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology of India, Vol. IV, No. 2, December 1953. "Presidential Address" , at the 8th All India Obstetrics & Gynaecology Congress, Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology of India, Vol. V, No. 4, June 1955.