Christine Elizabeth "Tina" Cooper OBE (21 July 1918 – 1 September 1986) was an English paediatrician and an expert on child abuse. She worked at Newcastle General Hospital for the majority of her career and received an OBE in 1967 for her services to children's health in Sierra Leone, which included establishing a national immunisation programme.
Tina Cooper was born on 21 July 1918 in Watford. Her father, William Francis Cooper, was an analytical chemist and general practitioner. Her mother, Christine Maud Jones, died from influenza when Tina was six months old; her father remarried to Eileen Hall in 1920. The family moved to Surrey in 1924. Cooper attended numerous schools including Surbiton High School (1927–30), St John's School for Girls in Bexhill-on-Sea (1930–35), and Beau Soleil, a finishing school near Lausanne, Switzerland (1935–36). After spending two years training as a nursery nurse in Highgate, London, she decided to pursue a career in medicine to contribute further to children's welfare. She was admitted in 1939 to Girton College, Cambridge, for undergraduate studies, and completed her clinical training at the Royal Free Hospital School of Medicine, graduating as MB BCh in 1945. [1]
Cooper began her medical career at London's Royal Free Hospital as a house physician, a house officer in obstetrics, and first assistant in the paediatric department. She received a diploma in child health in 1948 and moved to Newcastle the following year to join James Calvert Spence as a paediatric registrar at Newcastle General Hospital. She was appointed consultant in 1952, and held the role until her retirement in 1983. [1] From 1964, she spent two years in Sierra Leone advising the government on child health policy, which included establishing a national immunisation programme against measles and other childhood infections. [2] She was awarded an OBE in 1967 for her services to children's health in Sierra Leone, and elected Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians in the same year. [2]
Cooper was interested in a family-oriented approach to paediatrics, believing that children's health relied strongly upon environmental and parental influences. [1] On this basis, she studied fostered and adopted children, becoming an advisor to the Northern Counties Adoption Society and serving on the council of the Association of British Adoption and Fostering Agencies. [2] In the 1960s, she turned her focus to abused children, embracing the ideas of C. Henry Kempe, an American who argued that child abuse was more prevalent than previously thought. While most British specialists refuted Kempe's research, according to the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography , Cooper was "one of the first child specialists in Britain to recognise the prevalence, and the physical, psychological, and sexual nature, of child abuse". [1] In 1979 she co-founded the British Association for the Study and Prevention of Child Abuse and Neglect (now the Association of Child Protection Professionals), subsequently serving as its president. She was also a member of an early research group on child abuse that influenced national government policy in the 1970s. [2]
Cooper retired in 1983 and died from cancer on 1 September 1986 in Gosforth, Newcastle. [1]
June Kathleen Lloyd, Baroness Lloyd of Highbury, DBE, FRCP, FRCP Edin, FRCGP was a British paediatrician and, in retirement, a cross bench member of the House of Lords. June Lloyd was a determined advocate for children's health and was instrumental in the establishment of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health. In 1996 the college gained its royal status. She was also known for discovering that the damage caused to patients by the rare metabolic disease oQ-betalipoproteinaemia, that could be avoided by the use of Vitamin E. She was also known for discovering the role of lipid metabolism in health and disease in childhood, which was original and difficult to investigate at that time.
Helen Mary Mayo, was an Australian medical doctor and medical educator, born and raised in Adelaide. In 1896, she enrolled at the University of Adelaide, where she studied medicine. After graduating, Mayo spent two years working in infant health in England, Ireland and British India. She returned to Adelaide in 1906, starting a private practice and taking up positions at the Adelaide Children's Hospital and Adelaide Hospital.
Sir James Calvert Spence, & Bar was an English paediatrician who was a pioneer in the field of social paediatrics. He was a founding member of the British Paediatric Association.
Barbara Mary Ansell, CBE, FRCP, FRCS was the founder of paediatric rheumatology. Ansell was notable for outstanding contributions to the advancement of paediatric knowledge, specifically defining chronic joint disorders and the improvement of their management.
Sir John Peter Mills Tizard was a British paediatrician and professor at the University of Oxford. Tizard was principally notable for important research into neonatology and paediatric neurology and being a founder member of the Neonatal Society in 1959. Tizard was considered the most distinguished academic children's physician of his generation.
Ann Barrett OBE, is Emeritus Professor of Oncology in the University of East Anglia, England, and formerly deputy dean of the School of Medicine and lead clinician for oncology at the Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital NHS Trust. She was awarded an OBE in 2010 for services to medicine. She is also a fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland.
Muriel Helen Deem was a New Zealand medical doctor, medical officer, Plunket medical adviser and university lecturer.
The Welbodi Partnership is a Sierra Leone and UK-registered charity that works exclusively in Sierra Leone, where it collaborates with official and non-official partners to support the provision of pediatric care. The charity was founded in 2007 by British entrepreneur Tom Cairnes along with Dr Matthew Clark, a UK pediatrician who visited Sierra Leone as a medical student. They now serve on the charity's Board of Directors. The name Welbodi is derived from the Krio word for “health”. Welbodi is based at the Ola During Children's Hospital (ODCH) in Freetown, which is Sierra Leone's only paediatric referral and teaching hospital.
Robert Hugh Jackson OBE MC was a British paediatrician most notable for his campaign to introduce childproof packaging to medicine.
Hilary Dawn Cass is a British medical doctor and a consultant in paediatric disability at St Thomas' Hospital, London. She was the President of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health from 2012 to 2015.
Hendrika Bestebreurtje Cantwell is a German-born American retired physician, professor emerita of pediatrics at the University of Colorado Denver, advocate for abused and neglected children, and parenting educator. She was one of the first physicians in the United States to work for a child protection agency, serving with the Denver Department of Social Services from 1975 to 1989. Her work there brought her in contact with an estimated 30,000 cases of suspected child abuse and she testified as an expert witness in thousands of court cases. An author of peer-reviewed journal articles, book chapters, and teaching manuals on the detection and treatment of child abuse, she has also conducted workshops and training programs for professionals throughout Colorado. She was inducted into the Colorado Women's Hall of Fame in 1990.
Sir Douglas Vernon Hubble was a paediatric endocrinologist, general practitioner, and professor of paediatrics and dean of medicine at the University of Birmingham. Hubble was principally notable for research into paediatric endocrinology and publishing a number of papers on the subject, which gave him a national reputation.
Ronald Charles MacKeith FRCP was a British paediatrician. MacKeith was prolific in his endeavours. He was principally known for establishing the first cerebral palsy advice clinic, which was to become in 1964, the larger and more comprehensive Newcomen Centre for disabled children in Guy's Hospital. He founded the British Paediatric Neurology Association and the medical journal, Developmental Medicine & Child Neurology. His work gained recognition of the field of paediatric neurology as a science in several European countries.
Alfred White Franklin FRCP was an English neonatologist and paediatrician who edited numerous books on child abuse, founded the British Association for the Study and Prevention of Child Abuse and Neglect, kept an interest in medical history and wrote on child matters. He was a prominent figure in the field of child abuse prevention.
Seymour Donald Mayneord Court, CBE, FRCSLT, FRCP, Hon FRCGP was a deeply religious British paediatrician who was known for his achievements in the fields of respiratory disease and the epidemiology of disease in childhood. He was also known for working, in a primary role, that established the importance of research into the social and behavioural aspects of illness in childhood.
Muriel Buxton-Thomas, was an African nuclear medicine physician and researcher.
Cynthia Mary Illingworth FRCP FRCPCH (Hon) was an English consultant paediatrician and medical author. She was the first consultant in paediatric accident and emergency medicine in the United Kingdom.
Malcolm Gracie "Calum" Semple is a British physician and academic. He is Professor of Child Health and Outbreak Medicine at the University of Liverpool and a consultant respiratory paediatrician at Alder Hey Children's Hospital Liverpool.
John Kingdon Guy Webb was an English paediatrician and first-class cricketer. After attending the University of Oxford, where he played first-class cricket, Webb became a paediatrician who spent eighteen years at the Christian Medical College in Vellore, Tamil Nadu and was instrumental in helping set up a paediatric medical structure in the country.
Professor Abdul Rashid Gatrad OBE, DL, FRCP, Hon FRCPCH, MRCS (1946-) is a Malawi-born consultant paediatrician of Memon heritage, working in England.