Marie Elizabeth Hayes

Marie Elizabeth Hayes (17 May 1874 – 3 January 1908) was an Irish physician and medical missionary. One of the early women to qualify in medicine in Ireland, in 1904, she served under the Cambridge Mission to Delhi in northern India and led the mission hospital at Rewari. She won first silver medals in surgery and pathology and shared first place in obstetrics. After a residency at the Coombe Hospital she was invited back as a clerk, and later spent six months at the Mater Misericordiae Hospital, one of the few Dublin hospitals that admitted women as residents. In the final degree examination of April 1904 she was the only woman to gain an "Upper Pass", and was conferred the MB, BCh and BAO degrees. Preparing for missionary service, she studied for three months at the London School of Tropical Medicine, trained at the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel (S.P.G.) hostel in Wandsworth, and learned Urdu; she also worked as a locum tenens at the Belfast Infirmary. Her funeral was held at St Stephen's Church in Delhi, and a memorial service was held at All Saints' Church, Raheny.