Pickerill, Cecily M A W

Born Taihape 9 Feb 1903                              Died Lower Hutt 21 Jul 1988

Educated at the Diocesan High School for Girls, Auckland

HS, Dunedin Hospital 1926, working with Professor Henry Pickerill

HS, and later Clinical Associate, Royal North Shore Hospital, Sydney 1927 - 1934

Returned to NZ in 1935, and with Henry Pickerill (whom she had married in 1934), established private practice in Wellington, initially working from Lewisham Hospital and later had a visiting appointment at Middlemore Hospital, Auckland.

In 1939, the Pickerills established Bassam Hospital in Lower Hutt which, by 1942, had become a hospital for children requiring plastic surgery.

Assistant Plastic Surgeon, Wellington Hospital 1940 - 1945. She was acting Senior Plastic Surgeon in 1945, but was unsuccessful in her application for a permanent senior appointment (probably because of a lack of higher qualification).

Cecily continued to work from Bassam Hospital until her retirement in 1967.

She was made OBE in 1958, and DME in 1977.

photograph courtesy Dominion Post collection, Alexander Turnbull Library

Obituary:  NZMJ 1988 101:646