Catherine Neill

Catherine Annie Neill (3 September 1921 – 23 February 2006) was a British pediatric cardiologist who spent the majority of her career at the Johns Hopkins Children's Center in Baltimore, where she worked alongside Helen B. Taussig.

Her teaching and mentorship ability held her in esteem among colleagues and trainees; according to Edward Clark from the University of Utah, at the time, “a place for women in medicine was hard to find," and Neill's "quiet mentoring and support was one of the reasons so many women chose pediatric cardiology, because they had such a strong role model and mentor.”[1] Neill died in 2006 at 84 years old in nursing home care while visiting family in Wimbledon, London.

[2] She travelled to Canada in 1950 to pursue a fellowship in pediatric cardiology at The Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto,[1] where she worked with John Keith,[2] and she moved to the United States the following year.

[4] She took up a post at the Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore as an assistant to Helen B. Taussig, the founder of the field of pediatric cardiology and one of the originators of the Blalock–Taussig shunt, a lifesaving procedure to treat certain heart defects.

Edward Clark from the University of Utah noted that at the time, “a place for women in medicine was hard to find," and that he believed that "her quiet mentoring and support was one of the reasons so many women chose pediatric cardiology, because they had such a strong role model and mentor.”[1] George Dover, a former Pediatrician-in-Chief at the Johns Hopkins Children's Center, commented that Neill was "probably more famous as a clinician and an educator than as a strict scientist.

[1] In its obituary for Neill, The Times referred to her as "a pioneer in open-heart surgery for children born with congenital defects" and "for decades a leading and influential figure in the field of pediatric cardiology.

"[4] Richard S. Ross, then the Dean Emeritus of Johns Hopkins University's School of Medicine, wrote that Neill was "first and foremost a skillful and wise physician.