On 6 July,  seven current medical students from the University of Edinburgh will be accepting a posthumous MBChB degree on behalf of the Edinburgh Seven.  We spoke to each of them about the significance of the event and their ambitions for the future.

Megan Cameron,  Year 4. Originally from East Kilbride.

What inspires you about the Edinburgh Seven?

Their unwavering efforts to not only qualify and practice as doctors themselves but their selflessness in pioneering women’s medical education. Isabel Thorne set aside her goal of being a practicing clinician to devote her life to the medical education of women and in doing this enabled the generations of women to follow to achieve their ambitions. It would have been very easy for these women to live a quieter life as practising doctors after the fight they had to endure to qualify but instead they continued to fight to ensure the future of women in medicine and that is admirable above all else.

Why do you think it’s important that the seven are receiving their posthumous degrees?

It gives the Edinburgh 7 the degrees that are rightfully theirs but also the recognition they deserve. The celebrations allow the story to be known and spread beyond students at the university and to the wider public who might never have heard of  the work of the Edinburgh Seven.

What do you hope to achieve in your own career?

At present, I have no idea what direction I want my medical degree to take me, I change my mind everyday! I might decide to become involved in general practice, in senior management or even to follow in the footsteps of Dr Catherine Calderwood and become Chief Medical Officer for Scotland. The important thing is that I have the choice and this was only made possible by the work the Edinburgh Seven started and that has been continued by many other amazing women since.

Representing the Seven: Megan Cameron / Edinburgh Seven by blogadmin is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution CC BY 3.0