Lelia Duley: epidemiologist whose eclampsia trials transformed maternal health worldwide

Lelia Duley was twice told to forget her ambitions in medicine. The first time was at her comprehensive school in Oxford, when a careers adviser suggested that because her “father wasn’t rich” she did not have the right background for medicine. The second time came years later when a senior colleague took her aside to inform her that obstetrics was, “of course, not a profession for women.”