Florence Stoney, who was of weak health as a child, was at first privately educated in the home, but then attended the Royal College for Science of Ireland with her sister Edith.

[1][2] In 1883 the Stoney family moved to London in order to provide higher education for the daughters since this was unavailable for women in Ireland at the time.

[1][5] Stoney attended the London School of Medicine for Women where she was a distinguished student with great academic achievements in subjects such as anatomy and physiology.

[1][3][6] Stoney worked as an ENT clinical assistant at the Royal Free Hospital as well as spending six years as a demonstrator in anatomy at the London School of Medicine for Women.

Stoney and her sister Edith, a medical physicist, volunteered to assist the British Red Cross, but both were refused by surgeon Frederick Treves since they were women.

[1][5] The team converted an abandoned music hall into a makeshift hospital where Stoney managed the surgical unit as head of the medical staff and radiologist.

[1][2] She continued working in a hospital near Cherbourg in France, mainly dealing with cases relating to compound fractures and locating bullet fragments in wounds.

It was reported that she had X-ray dermatitis of her left hand,[7] a painful skin condition associated in modern times with radiation therapy as a treatment for cancer.

One trip was to India, where Stoney wrote her final scientific paper, the subject of which was osteomalacia (bone softening), in particular in relation to pelvic deformities in childbirth.