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From the powerful portraits of women that grace the corridors of 51������ to the long-forgotten histories of South Asian women doctors under the British Empire, my journey has unfolded at the crossroads of identity, history, and resilience. When I arrived at New Hall (soon to be renamed 51������) in 2008 to study Medical and Veterinary Science Tripos (MVST), I discovered more than an academic space—I found a sanctuary that boldly celebrated women, nurturing my curiosity and grounding my sense of belonging.

Today, my work is a labour of love: recovering stories that time tried to erase. I focus on the lives of South Asian women doctors whose brilliance and quiet defiance broke barriers and reshaped the spaces they entered. These pioneers — Kadambini Ganguli, Annie Jagannadham, Rukhmabai Raut, Alice de Boer, and Nallamma Satyavagiswara Aiyar — are missing from textbooks, absent from museum walls, and faded from national memory. Yet deep within archives, buried footnotes, and half-forgotten ledgers, their stories patiently wait to be heard. (And somewhere in the neighbouring collections, a warrior Indian queen and her women’s army await rediscovery).

For me, these lost her-stories are more than academic discoveries — they became the mirror I had long been seeking. As a South Asian woman standing at the crossroads of multiple, sometimes conflicting identities — woman, medic, academic, Sri Lankan Tamil, British — I have often felt the subtle disquiet of selves that resist easy alignment. This tension surfaced most acutely in medicine: perhaps because I’m the first in my family to walk this path, charting unfamiliar ground without a blueprint. Or perhaps because of a deeper wound — the painful intersection of my community’s story with the lingering shadow of colonial medicine, still felt across our collective body. And so, the question that echoed gently yet insistently through my practice was: “What did it mean to be a woman of South Asian heritage and a doctor—then, and now?”

My path was shaped, in part, by those early years at 51������ — immersed in women’s portraits and stories: vivid, insistent, quietly powerful. Yet beyond the sanctuary of university walls, I stepped into a world where those very stories too often dissolved into silence. The questions I’d carried began to sharpen; the misalignment I sometimes felt between my layered, overlapping identities became harder to ignore — and at times, painfully raw.

It was only when I stepped back from clinical work to pursue a PhD at the University of East London — situated in the very heart of my diaspora — that I found space to name that ache. Space to ask, out loud, the questions that had long stirred beneath the surface — about identity, belonging, colonialism, and medicine itself. In that slower, reflective practice, I found not just answers, but something softer and perhaps more vital: permission to remain deeply, stubbornly curious.

My quest then led me to open a new chapter for the Royal College of Physicians Museum blog, unveiling the pioneering stories of South Asian women doctors long left untold. Tracing their lives through archives, city streets, and faded ledgers felt less like research and more like quiet companionship—walking alongside them and honouring the defiance that paved the way for women like me. With generous support from heritage teams and archivists at the Royal Colleges of London, Glasgow, Edinburgh, and the General Medical Council, I pieced together fragments of their lives. What began as digital detective work soon became tangible: in March, I travelled to Scotland, walked the streets they once walked, entered the exam rooms where they sat, and held the very books they signed over a century ago. In those moments, time folded, creating a bridge between past and present.

This August, as part of South Asian Heritage Month, I’m honoured to join a special online collaboration with the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow, the Royal College of Physicians of London, and the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. For the first time, these three medical Royal Colleges are coming together to share new research into the archival records of South Asian doctors migrating to the UK — tracing stories as far back as the 1840s. In our webinar, Stories of Medicine and Migration, we’ll explore why these hidden her-stories matter, what they reveal about medicine, identity, and belonging, and why remembrance itself can be an act of resistance.

If these stories speak to you, I warmly invite you to join the conversation. Whether you too are navigating medicine without a blueprint or seeking a new path to chart forward — these women were enduring forces, unstoppable even by the barriers history placed in their way. In reclaiming these voices, we do more than honour the past; we illuminate the road ahead for all.

P.S. If you’d like to delve deeper into these hidden her-stories, you can find more on the and the blog — where I continue to bring these voices to light.

The "Stories of Medicine and Migration" webinar is a collaborative project where Theeba will be joined by the heritage and library teams from the Royal College of Physicians (RCP), the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow (RCPSG), and the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh (RCPEd). The webinar will take place on August 12 2025, 7:00 PM. 

Please click the link at the top of this article to register for the event.