Jerusha Jhirad MD, FRCOG, MBE | |
---|---|
Born | Bombay, Bombay Presidency, India | 21 March 1891
Died | 2 June 1984 India | (aged 93)
Occupation | Physician |
Awards | Padma Shri |
Jerusha Jacob Jhirad FRCOG, MBE (21 March 1891 – 2 June 1984) was an Indian physician.[1][2]
Jhirad born in Shivamogga, Karnataka.[3] She was a member of the Bene Israel Jewish community.[1][4] She attended high school in Pune,[3] then Grant Medical College in Bombay, where she became a Licentiate in Medicine and Surgery with an L.M.S. diploma in 1912.[5] She was the first woman to be granted a scholarship by the Indian government to study abroad.[1] In England she studied at the London School of Medicine for Women (based at the Royal Free Hospital), re-qualified as a Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery (MB BS) of the University of London in 1917[6] and went on to a doctorate (M.D.) in 1919 in Midwifery and Diseases of Women.[7] Specializing in obstetrics and gynaecology[5] she worked as a House Surgeon at the Elizabeth Garrett Anderson Hospital in London in 1917 and at the Birmingham Maternity Hospital in 1918 before returning to India.[8]
While she was studying in England during World War I, Jhirad was an obstetric assistant and house surgeon at the Elizabeth Garrett Anderson Hospital in London, and house surgeon at a maternity hospital in Birmingham. Back in India by 1920, she was briefly an obstetrician at the Lady Hardinge Hospital in Delhi. From 1920 to 1924, she was medical officer-in-charge at the maternity hospital in Bangalore. From 1925 to 1928 she was on the staff of the Cama Hospital in Mumbai, where she served as medical officer-in-charge in 1929 to 1947.[1][5]
Jhirad was appointed a justice of the peace in 1931.[5] In 1934 she provided medical assistance to survivors of an earthquake in Bihar.[3] In 1937 and 1938 she made a statistical study of maternal mortality in Bombay.[9] She was a founding member and president of the Bombay Obstetric and Gynaecological Society,[2] and president of the Federation of Obstetric and Gynaecological Societies of India (FOGSI).[4] and from 1947 to 1957 president of the Association of Medical Women in India (AMWI). She wrote in favor of sex education and healthy recreational options to limit unplanned pregnancies.[3] In 1950 she presided at the 6th All India Obstetric and Gynaecological Congress, held in Madras.[2]
Jhirad was also a pioneer of Progressive Judaism; after attending mixed-gender prayers at the Jewish Religious Union (JRU), she returned to Mumbai and founded a JRU-affiliated congregation among the Bene Israel with her sister Leah in 1925.[10]
In 1945, Jhirad was awarded an MBE by the British government. In 1947, she was elected a Fellow of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists.[3] In 1966, she was awarded the Padma Shri.[1] The Venusian crater Jhirad was named after her.[20]
Jhirad wrote a short autobiography in 1975, which informed her niece's biography of her, A Dream Realised: Biography of Dr Jerusha J. Jhirad (1990).[21] She died in 1984, aged 93 years.[4]