Lieutenant Edna Mary Guest

1. Lieutenant (British Army).
2. Lieutenant (British Army).

Dr. Edna Mary Guest was one of the few women who was able to practice as a physician during the war. Many other women with medical degrees had to work as nurses.

Born in 1883, Dr. Guest was a graduate of the University of Toronto in 1910, and completed postgraduate work at Harvard University, interning in Boston. She later worked as a professor of anatomy and assistant professor of surgery with Canadian Missionary Medicine in India.

Dr. Guest was a Lieutenant at the North Hamptonshire War Hospital (1915-1917), and was later appointed commanding medical officer at the Scottish Women's Hospital, Corsica (1917).

Between 1918 and 1918 she was in charge of an army base hospital in France.

Her sister, Emily Jane Guest (1871-1936) was working as a V.A.D. in England.

Dr. Guest returned to Toronto and set up a private practice in 1919, and was connected with the newsly established Women's College Hospital. She became surgeon-in-chief at WCH in 1935.

She was named to the Order of the British Empire by King George V.

She died in 1958.

Researched: M. I. Pirie

Sources: CMAJ, Vol. 141, November 15, 1989 (1093-1094): "Dr. Edna Mary Guest: She promoted women's issues before it was fashionable"

Full article.

Her parents were John Guest (1842-1914) and Elizabeth Scott (1843-1903), natives of Ireland. Other siblings were Emily Jane (1871-1936), Walter Scott (1873-1932), Elena Anne (1877-1939), Ernest Adam James (b. 1880), and Irene Evelyn (b. 1886).