Ouida Ramón-Moliner

On 23 December 1929, Ramón-Moliner was born in Waterford in the Republic of Ireland.[1] She was named after Maria Louise Ramé, the English author whose pen name was Ouida.[2] Ramón-Moliner was one of five children of Indian immigrants from Mangalore to Ireland.[1] She was inspired from an early age to be similar to a woman anaesthetist who was working with her father and she wanted to give birth to four offspring,[2] two boys and two girls.[1] Ramón-Moliner studied medicine at Trinity College Dublin,[3] but she did not go to her intended destination of New Zealand. Rather, she remained in Montreal after meeting her husband Enrique Ramòn-Moliner in 1956.[2][4] In Montreal, she finished her post-graduate training at the Royal Victoria Hospital.[1][2]

She emigrated to Canada in 1956,[4] and began her career at Montreal General Hospital and helped Wilder Penfield to perform awake crainotomies keeping patients awake to locate where exactly there were suffering from epilepsy. Ramón-Moliner prepared for awake craintonmies by constructing a small tent for her and the patient to talk directly with each other and using a light would show the patient a stack of word-picture cards.[2] She also worked with the anaemia cure pioneer Harold Griffith.[1] Ramón-Moliner went on to work at Georgetown University Hospital in Washington, D.C., and participated in the first mechanical surgeries for mechanical hear-valves.[1][2] When First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy gave birth to John F. Kennedy Jr., she was the anaesthetist on call,[1] and requested the head of department to do the delivery.[2]

Ramón-Moliner was then appointed the first woman anaesthetist at Université Laval,[1] and later joined the teaching staff of the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences (CHUS) at the Université de Sherbrooke in 1967.[4] She worked in Sherbrooke until 1995. Ramón-Moliner did not make any official retirement following her no longer practising medicine.[3][4] She served on CHUS' user committee,[3] and assisted in the establishment of the Massawippi Water Protection group,[1] of which she served as president.[2] Ramón-Moliner assisted in her friends in getting around the medical system such as driving them to appointments. She earned the Quebec Lieutenant Governor's Seniors Medal in 2012.[2]

She was married to the Spanish-born neuroscientist Enrique Ramón-Moliner.[1] There were four children from the marriage.[2] Ramón-Moliner was diagnosed with aggressive pancreatic cancer and died at her home in North Hatley, Quebec, on 21 February 2020.[1][2] She was given a non-religious informal remembrance service in front of more than 200 individuals at the Unitarian Universalist Church eight days later.[2][3]

Her children described her as "often the first woman among men. Ouida would respond with her trademark shrug to any suggestions that, as a woman, she might have been treated unfairly at work" and that she "was pragmatic and objective."[1] Ramón-Moliner helped to pioneer environmentalism and was inclined to reduce, reuse and recycle before the practice became common.[3] The $1200 Ouida Ramon-Moliner Scholarship for Science issued by Champlain Regional College was named after her. A male or female student citizen of Canada is eligible for the scholarship and it is awarded "to a graduate of a science program at Champlain College Lennoxville Campus, from the Eastern Townships who intends to pursue further scientific studies."[5]