Elizabeth M. Bryan

Elizabeth M. Bryan
Born	(1942-05-13)13 May 1942 Sowerby Bridge,West Yorkshire
Died	21 February 2008(2008-02-21)(aged 65)
Nationality	English
Medical career
Field	Paediatrics
Institutions	Royal Postgraduate Medical School, Queen Charlotte's and Chelsea Hospital, International Society for Twin Studies
Sub-specialties	Multiple births

Elizabeth Mary Bryan(13 May 1942 – 21 February 2008)was a Britishpaediatricianwho specialised inmultiple birthsandtwins.

Early life

Elizabeth Bryan was born inSowerby Bridge,West Yorkshire.She was the eldest of three daughters born toPaul Bryan,aConservativeMP, and Betty Hoyle, aphysiotherapist.Elizabeth claimed that she decided to become a doctor after watching a documentary about African children in hospital at the age of six. She was educated atDuncombe ParkinHelmsley,and thenBenenden Schoolin Kent. She began her medical training atSt Thomas's Hospital Medical Schoolin London, but she left her studies for a year to nurse her mother, who had developedbipolar disorder;she resumed her training atScarborough General Hospitaland qualified with anMBBSin 1966.

Career

Bryan trained as apaediatricianatYork Hospitaland at London'sHammersmith Hospital.She returned to York in 1975 to work as a senior clinical medical officer.She first became interested intwinsin 1973, after assisting in the delivery of a set of twins: as a result oftwin-twin transfusion syndrome,one was large and red while the other was small and pale.Inspired by this encounter, she gained anMDin 1977 with her thesis on "Serum Immunoglobulins in Twin Pregnancy with Particular Reference to the Fetofetal Transfusion Syndrome".In 1978, she co-founded the Twins and Multiple Births Association and published guidelines for healthcare workers on managingmultiple births.She moved back to London in 1979, becoming a consultant paediatrician atQueen Charlotte's and Chelsea Hospital.She was a senior research fellow and later a senior lecturer at theRoyal Postgraduate Medical School,where she taught until 1995.From 1987, she established specialised clinics for twins in London, York andBirmingham.In response to the rise in multiple births caused by the increasing popularity ofin vitro fertilisation(IVF), she founded the Multiple Births Foundation, a charity that provides support to twins' families, in 1988. She also campaigned for IVF providers to reduce the number of embryos they implanted, to decrease the incidence of multiple births.

Throughout her career, Bryan encountered over 100 sets of twins,and when she married in 1978, 25 pairs of twins attended her wedding.She and her husband, Ronald Higgins, an ecologist and diplomat, wrote a book titledInfertility: New Choices, New Dilemmas(1995) about their failed experience with IVF and other attempts to become pregnant.With her 1995 bookTwins, Triplets and More,she was one of the first to write about the unique psychology of being a twin or triplet.She was also among the first people to study the grief felt by a twin when the other dies, and established a clinic for bereaved twins.

Bryan was president of the Twins and Multiple Births Association from 1978 until 1984, and was a trustee until 1991. She directed the Multiple Births Foundation from its founding in 1988 until 1998. She was elected president of theInternational Society for Twin Studiesin 1998 and held the position until 2001.She was electedFellow of the Royal College of Physiciansin 1989and was a reader in paediatrics atImperial College School of Medicinefrom 1995 until her retirement in 2005.

Health problems and death

Bryan discovered in 1975 that she carried theBRCA1gene mutation, which predisposes carriers toovarianand breast cancer. One of her sisters died from ovarian cancer, while the other developed breast cancer; as a precaution, Bryan had herovaries removedand underwent a doublemastectomyin 1992. She was eventually diagnosed withpancreatic cancerin 2005, and underwent surgery andchemotherapy.In 2007, she published a book,Singing the Life: The Story of a Family in the Shadow of Cancer,about her family's experience with cancer.She died a year later, on 21 February 2008.