Isabella Forshall

Isabella Forshall FRCSE (2 October 1900 – 10 August 1989) was an English paediatric surgeon who played a leading role in the development of the speciality of paediatric surgery in the United Kingdom. She took a particular interest in neonatal surgery and was instrumental in the establishment of the Liverpool Neonatal Surgical Unit, the first neonatal intensive care unit in the UK and indeed in the world. She did not attend school, her education being conducted at home by her mother, a Cambridge classics graduate. She went on to study medicine at the London School of Medicine for Women and the Royal Free Hospital from where she qualified MB BS in 1927. After the war she set about assembling a team of paediatric specialists in Liverpool that would promote the development of the speciality not only in Liverpool but nationally in the United Kingdom. It was largely the result of her efforts that the Liverpool Neonatal Surgical Unit at the Alder Hey Children's Hospital was opened in 1953.

Further qualifications and awards In 1957 she gained the diplomas of MRCS and LRCP and in 1960 she became FRCSE. The following year she was president of the paediatric section of the Royal Society of Medicine. She became president of the Liverpool Medical Institution and in 1970 received the degree of Master of Surgery (ChM) from the University of Liverpool.

Later life and legacy She retired to Sussex and died in Chichester on 10 August 1989. She was commemorated by the Forshall Lecture given at the Annual Congress of the British Association of Paediatric Surgeons.