Joan Ford

Joan Ford CM (November 4, 1925 – October 31, 2021) was a British-born Canadian doctor who was the first woman physician at the Royal Columbian Hospital in British Columbia.

[2] Ford started her career in British Columbia, where she was the first woman to work as a physician at the Royal Columbian Hospital, and was the president of the Medical Women of Canada.

[2] During this time she was a locum in remote parts of British Columbia including the coastal community of Bella Coola, and she later went to Dominica in the Caribbean.

[2] Ford's association with the Sherpas stemmed from a 1979 conversation with the New Zealand mountaineer Edmund Hillary who was the first to ascend Mount Everest with his climbing partner Tenzing Norgay.

[4] Ford used the opportunity to take a break at age 55 from her doctoral duties in British Columbia, moving to a village in Nepal, treating Sherpas in the mountainous region.