Leela Kapila

Leela Kapila is a British-Indian surgeon and former consultant paediatric surgeon at the Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust. She was awarded the OBE for services to surgery in 1996.

Early life and education Kapila, a graduate of Christian Medical College Vellore, arrived in the United Kingdom in 1962 and joined the National Health Service. After completing her surgical exams, she was appointed to the Royal London Hospital, where she tried paediatric surgery for the first time. She eventually trained in paediatric surgery at Great Ormond Street Hospital. Her early research considered the complications that could result from circumcision, and whether patients were being exposed to an unnecessary operation.

She was appointed Chair of the Royal College of Surgeons of England Women in Surgical Training committee. She has studied the historical representation of women in paediatric surgery and how the environment for women surgeons had changed.

In 2008 the Royal College of Surgeons of England commissioned a portrait of Kapila by Jane Brettle.

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