Clare Marx

Looking ahead to International Women’s Day, this is a second chance to hear Michael Berkeley’s interview with the trailblazing surgeon Dame Clare Marx, who sadly died in November 2022; the programme is repeated by kind permission of her husband, Andrew.

Clare Marx was the first woman to become President of the Royal College of Surgeons of England in 2014, and the first woman to become the Chair of the General Medical Council five years later. Clare Marx had to overcome significant prejudice to reach the top of her field but in 2007 she received a CBE and in 2018 a DBE for services to medicine. But then came the blow of a terminal diagnosis of incurable pancreatic cancer. With characteristic courage and grace, she announced her resignation from the General Medical Council.

When she came into the studio, Clare Marx had only eight months to live, but no one would have guessed she was ill. She was calm, elegant, composed. But she knew that this would be her last broadcast interview, a message to her colleagues, her family, indeed to everyone listening. Her music choices include Britten’s Sea Interludes, Verdi’s Requiem, and Mozart’s trio “Soave sia il vento”, a message to all who are about to sail away across the sea. “May the winds be gentle, may the waves be calm.”

Michael Berkeley began by asking Clare about that moving public letter of resignation, in which she said: “Since receiving this news, I've been reminded once again of the importance and power of kindness in everything we do as doctors.”

Pancreatic Cancer UK www.pancreaticcancer.org.uk

Information and support: Cancer https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/1KkkxvD0G1w4l294QCrQZbh/information-and-support-cancer

Produced by Elizabeth Burke A Loftus Media production for BBC Radio 3