Dr Barbara Ball was a woman of true courage who stood up for her beliefs at a time when doing so brought with it a high financial and professional cost.The first female doctor to be given privileges at King Edward VII Memorial Hospital, she operated an unsegregated medical practice and was at the forefront of the movement for equal rights for all.Very quickly, Dr Ball became an important member of the Bermuda Industrial Union, and was prominent in the 1965 Belco strike which ended in violence.Dr Ball paid a heavy price for her progressive politics at a time of segregation when much of the rest of the white community was deeply conservative and racist.She lost her partnership in her medical practice and was largely ostracised from the white community.None of that stopped her. She served Pembroke East Central as a Progressive Labour Party MP from 1968 to 1985. She was an important member of the union hierarchy whose detailed research was vitally important in labour negotiations.Her soft-spoken manner belied a steely determination that she never lost.It is right that there is now a medical scholarship in her name. It should remind all physicians, who have an obligation to save lives and to safeguard the community’s health, the need to help to ensure that the community’s social health is strong as well.“Doc” will be missed.