Elizabeth Catherine Gunn MBE (23 May 1879 – 26 October 1963) was a New Zealand school and army doctor and public health official.

[1] Gunn was born in Dunedin, the daughter of an ironmonger whose interests in medicine led him to change career initially to pharmacy and then to dentistry.

[2] After completing her studies, Gunn returned to New Zealand, working as a general practitioner in Wellington before joining the school medical service in 1912.

From 1915 to 1917, she was a captain in the New Zealand Medical Corps (NZMC),[3] having succeeded in gaining admission to a predominantly male preserve by her formidable force of character: upon initially failing to gain admittance to the NZMC she took her case directly to Prime Minister William Massey, claiming that this snubbing was injurious to her reputation in medical circles.

[5][6] Based on the system of open-air schools used in Britain to aid tuberculosis sufferers, Gunn proposed to Wanganui Hospital Board member B.P.

In November 1919, 55 children arrived at Turakina to spend three weeks under the supervision of Gunn and a small group of school nurses and teacher trainees.