A physician and leading practitioner of acupuncture who presided over the Bermuda Medical Society was also a proud member of the Business and Professional Women’s Association of Bermuda.

Elisabeth “Libby” Mayall’s medical work ranged from treating tourists as a hotel doctor to delivering hundreds of babies, and occasionally standing in as a locum to oversee the Emergency Room at King Edward VII Memorial Hospital.

Dr Mayall confronted discrimination in the 1960s when woman physicians were blocked from opening their own practices.

The barrier led her to work for the health department in the interim — earning her recognition among young people as the woman who attended schools to immunise pupils.

Katie Cornes, her daughter, said she was the first woman to open her own practice in Bermuda, becoming a “pioneering professional woman” beloved by her patients.

She went into business for herself in the late 1960s.

Medicine ran in the family: Dr Mayall’s father, Robert, was a doctor with the Royal Air Force, while Ida, her mother, was a surgical nurse.

Born in England, she got moved to the countryside with her late bother Miles and sister Rosemary because of the Second World War.

Their father’s RAF career entailed moving the family to Canada, where they happened to befriend a Bermudian family — and accompanied them to the island for a sojourn that ended up permanent.

Dr Mayall attended the Whitney Institute, followed by the Bermuda High School for Girls.

However, Dr Mayall, who loved science and knew from childhood that she would work in medicine, faced a problem: chemistry and physics, prerequisites for medical school, were not taught to girls.

She had to study them in England before attending Dalhousie University in Canada for her medical degree, graduating in 1961.

After an internship at a paediatric hospital in Worcester, Massachusetts, she returned to Bermuda.

Dr Mayall finally got her wish to go into business, opening her own practice with an office in the Russell Eve Building on Church Street in Hamilton.

She delivered so many babies in her first year, as a single mother with two small children, Ms Cornes and brother James, that she switched to a family practice.

According to her daughter, Dr Mayall served on several hospital boards, including one handling infectious diseases.

During the HIV epidemic that hit the island in the 1980s, one of her patients was believed to be the first in Bermuda to die from the disease.

Ms Cornes said: “My mom was devastated by it. It really hit home.

“She was one of those doctors that spent time with patients, getting to know them and counsel them. She took the Hippocratic Oath very, very seriously.”

In 1976, Dr Mayall became a founding member of the Business and Professional Women’s Association of Bermuda.

She spoke at the organisation’s 30th anniversary, recalling that one of her interests in the group had been the fight to secure paid maternity leave for women.

Dr Mayall also served as president during the 1990s of the Bermuda Medical Association, which ultimately merged with the Bermuda Medical Society to form the Bermuda Medical Doctors Association.

Another childhood fascination for Dr Mayall was acupuncture. For decades, she was the island’s leading practitioner.

She told The Royal Gazette in a 2002 interview that she had a 50 per cent success rate using it to get smokers to quit.

Dr Mayall travelled to China in the 1980s to study acupuncture first-hand, and ultimately qualified at the Shanghai International Acupuncture Training Centre.

She balanced her regular practice with acupuncture, eventually retiring after serving four generations of patients.

Dr Mayall indulged her love of animals and nature with swimming as well as filling her home with a wide range of plants.

She was well known for breeding prize-winning dachshunds, making her a fixture at the annual Agricultural Exhibition and dog shows. Dr Mayall also sent champion dogs overseas for breeding and shows.

• Elisabeth Mayall, a founding member of the Bermuda Professional Women’s Association and a president of the Bermuda Medical Doctors Association, was born on August 2, 1935. She died in March 2024, aged 88.