Professor Dame Averil Mansfield CBE wins Pride of Britain Lifetime Achievement Award
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Liverpool Medical School 1960 Alumni, Professor Dame Averil Mansfield CBE has won the Lifetime Achievement Award at the Daily Mirror's Pride of Britain Awards.
Averil, who was presented with the award at a star-studded ceremony this week, became the first female professor of surgery in the UK in 1993. She was appointed a CBE in 1999 for services to surgery and women in medicine and was awarded a damehood King's Birthday Honours earlier this year for services to surgery and to equality in medicine.
"I was completely taken by surprise when I learned that I was to receive this award."
Averil said: "I had the good fortune to spend my working life doing something I loved and I saw it as a privilege to care for patients and to teach and train the young doctors and surgeons. That was my reward but I am delighted to have received this recognition."
Averil was born in Blackpool to working class parents and her love of science was ignited by the chemistry experiments she would carry out in her kitchen as a child. She was the first in her family to pursue any kind of higher education and it’s this determination that helped her make such an outstanding contribution to healthcare, academia and equality both locally and nationally.
"I often think how fortunate I’ve been to have a job I’ve loved and found endlessly fulfilling.."
Averil has held leading roles as president of the Association of Surgeons of Great Britain and Ireland, the Vascular Surgical Society and the British Medical Association, as vice president of the Royal College of Surgeons and chair of Council of The Stroke Association. In addition, she was also founding chair of Women in Surgical Training, a hugely successful networking group with the mantra, ‘lift as you climb’. Averil continues to inspire students and young doctors by travelling around the UK to speak to them about their future careers.
Averil, whose granddaughter has just started her medical studies, recently appeared at the Liverpool Literary festival to talk about her autobiography Life in Her Hands.
“I’m very excited for my granddaughter as she heads off to medical school and I hope she has as happy a career as I have had."