Jean Mary Sandel

Jean Mary Sandel (26 December 1916 – 4 November 1974) was a New Zealand surgeon, and the first New Zealand woman to be made a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons in 1947.

Early life Sandel was born in Gisborne, East Coast, New Zealand on 26 December 1916, though she grew up in Taumaranui. She attended New Plymouth Girls High School where she was head girl and dux in 1932 and 1933.

At the University of Otago medical school she won a number of prizes: the Senior Scholarship in Medicine 1936; the Scott Memorial Medal 1936; the Fowler Scholarship 1937; the A.F.J. Mickle prize 1938; the William Ledingham Christie Medal in applied anatomy 1938; the New Zealand Graduates’ Clinical Prize 1938. Her 5th year dissertation was on the health and living conditions of Māori in the King Country. She graduated MBChB in 1939.

Career On completing her degree Sandel worked as a surgeon at Wellington Hospital before going to London to do postgraduate training and work as a surgical registrar. She returned to New Zealand in late 1949. In 1950 she took up a surgical position at New Plymouth Hospital where she became Director of Surgery in 1964. A portrait of Sandel, painted by artist Craig Primrose, was unveiled at the retirement village in 2021.