Mary Aquinas Monaghan

Sister Dr. Mary Aquinas Monaghan MB, FRCP, OBE (30 August 1919 – 28 November 1985) was an Irish Missionary Sister of St. Columban nun and physician, and was among the first four nuns to qualify as physicians in Ireland. She was considered an authority on the treatment and management of tuberculosis.

Early life and family Mary Aquinas Monaghan was born Cathleen or Kathleen Monaghan in Cartron, Cappataggle, Loughrea, County Galway on 30 August 1919. Her parents were Bartholomew, farmer, and Ellen Monaghan (née O'Sullivan). She was the second eldest of two sons and seven daughters. She attended the local national school and St Michael's Loreto Convent, Navan, County Meath. On 14 April 1939 she joined the Missionary Sisters of St Columban at Caheracon, County Clare, receiving her habit on 1 September 1939, and took the name Sister Mary Aquinas. She professed on 2 September 1947. Monaghan studied science for one year at University College Galway, later attending University College Dublin from 1941 to 1947. After graduating with her medical degree, she was a resident in Our Lady of Lourdes Tuberculosis Sanatorium, Dún Laoghaire, County Dublin, and the Coombe Maternity Hospital, Dublin. She was among the first four nuns to qualify as physicians in Ireland, after the lifting of the papal prohibition on nuns becoming medical doctors and midwives in 1936.

Career She was first sent on mission to Hanyang, China, but was expelled after the Communist revolution and was reassigned to Hong Kong. The Columban Sisters had been asked to take over a naval hospital in Hong Kong which had been converted into the Ruttonjee Tuberculosis Sanatorium. The Sanatorium, named after Jehangir Hormusjee Ruttonjee, provided free healthcare and was funded by local wealthy people, and was an interfaith non-sectarian hospital for the poor. Its patients were largely refugees from mainland China, and it was tackling a widespread problem with tuberculosis in Hong Kong. To prepare her for her work in Hong Kong, Monaghan studied further at Brompton Chest Hospital, London. Upon her arrival in Hong Kong on 17 January 1949, she was appointed medical superintendent of the Sanatorium. The Sanatorium was then opened on 24 February 1949.

Monaghan oversaw an increase in bed capacity in the Sanatorium, as well as it becoming a centre for research into the treatment of tuberculosis. In 1953 she was awarded a Tuberculosis Disease Diploma (TDD) from University of Wales, Cardiff, followed by her Fellow of the American College of Chest Physicians (FCCP) in 1955, FRCP in 1977. After her year in Cardiff, she toured Scandinavian countries visiting sanatoria and the Pasteur Institute in Paris. She also completed postgraduate studies at the London Hospital and at the Post-Graduate Medical School, Hammersmith, London in 1960.