From the WCH Archives.
October is Women’s History Month and the Archives of WCH is recognizing the career and achievements of Dr. Helen Bell Milburn. Considered a pioneer in the field of radiology in Canada, she went on to become one of the earliest cancer researchers at WCH.
Dr. Bell Milburn was one of ten women, in a class of ninety-two students, to graduate from the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Medicine in 1919. Eager to train in the newly emerging field of radiology, she completed post-graduate studies at Bellevue Hospital in New York City and then returned to Toronto. After working as a radiation therapist at Toronto General Hospital, Dr. Bell Milburn joined the staff of WCH’s Department of Radiology in April 1923.
More than a decade later in 1935, WCH moved from its small hospital on Rusholme Road to a 10-storey newly built modern hospital at 76 Grenville Street. This new facility housed a “well developed” research department providing the hospital staff with its first opportunity to establish a formal medical research program.
As a radiologist at WCH, Dr. Bell Milburn believed women’s cancers, specifically breast cancer, was an area of research that needed to be better explored. In 1939, she helped to establish WCH’s Breast Cancer Research Committee. As its chair, she was considered to be WCH’s leading breast specialist.
In 1945, Dr. Bell Milburn helped to launch one of Canada’s earliest long-term breast cancer studies at WCH. As the hospital explained to the media, with this groundbreaking study WCH was committed to undertaking the “long years of painstaking effort necessary to increase the knowledge of this disease.”
The study was the second study in the province to receive funding from the newly established Ontario Cancer Treatment and Research Foundation (now known as Cancer Care Ontario). It was also the first study recorded in WCH’s register of research projects maintained to document the hospital’s new research activities.
Relying heavily on the participation of student nurses at the WCH School of Nursing and from nearby nursing schools, over 4,000 young women entered the study between 1946 and 1962. Participants were examined every three years over a twenty-year period. The study aimed to create a profile of a woman who was most likely to develop breast cancer by examining factors such as a family history of breast cancer, overall health, body weight, breast size and environmental and lifestyle factors, such as smoking.
Dr. Bell Milburn retired from WCH in December 1954, however, she was appointed as a member of the hospital’s honourary staff and remained involved in its long-term breast cancer study until the late 1970s.
This past summer, the WCH Archives had the pleasure of meeting Dr. Bell Milburn’s grandson, Bruce, and his wife, Cynthia who generously donated numerous items belonging to his grandmother to the hospital’s historical collection. They also shared many details about her personal life. As Bruce explained,
“If you consider the obstacles for women in the 1920s and beyond, it is pretty amazing what my grandmother achieved. I remember her as not being domestic, yet she helped raise a child, who also became a doctor, and run a household with her husband of many years. By the time I was in my teens my grandmother was in her 80’s. However, her drive and determination had not lessened as she regularly traveled by train to London to help look after her “elderly” sisters, which she continued to do into her early 90’s.”
This Women’s History Month, we are proud to honour Dr. Helen Bell Milburn, an early female radiologist and medical researcher, who was determined to advance research in women’s cancers in Canada. To learn more about Dr. Helen Bell Milburn, please visit the Archives’ Women’s History Month display in the lobby during the month of October.