Dr Audrey Elizabeth Evans, emeritus Professor of Pediatrics at the University of Pennsylvania, died peacefully at home on September 29, 2022. Like few other physicians, she helped transform what the medical establishment of the time thought impossible, curing children with cancer. On her way to do so, she shattered several glass ceilings. Audrey was passionate and undeterred when it came to doing what was right, especially for children with cancer and their families. She leaves and enormous legacy and the torch she passes on will be carried by many of her trainees, who now have become leaders in the field.
Dr Evans was born on March 6, 1925, in York, England, one of three children. In 1953, she received her medical degree from the University of Edinburgh in Scotland, having been the only female in the program. Subsequently, on a Fulbright scholarship, she came to the United States of America to train in pediatrics. During the first 2 years at Boston Children’s Hospital, she met Dr Sydney Farber, who was one of the first to recognize the value of chemotherapeutic agents. After this, she spent 1 year at Johns Hopkins in Baltimore. Subsequently, she returned to the United Kingdom to practice pediatrics. Unfortunately, she encountered sexism again: pediatrics at the time was predominantly an inpatient specialty, hence dominated by males with no “room for females”. This led her back to Boston Children’s Hospital where she homed in on pediatric oncology. Shortly after her return to Boston, Dr Evans was recruited to Chicago as a pediatric oncologist where she began to develop her reputation as an outstanding academic physician, committing the rest of her live to improving the lives of children with cancer. From very early on she recognized that childhood cancer affected the whole family, not just the stricken child. She also recognized that success in the fight against childhood cancer could not be restricted to cure alone. She understood that fundamentally quality of life, both during treatment and for the rest of the life of the patient, had to be included in defining success. It is in this holistic perspective that she approached patient care.
