Born in Chester, England, in 1902, Diana Beck attended the University of Oxford and studied medicine at the School of Medicine for Women (later renamed the Royal Free Hospital School of Medicine). She graduated in 1925, and, after working as a surgical registrar, took her FRCS London and Edinburgh. Her exceptional surgical skills led her to work with renowned neurosurgeon Sir Hugh Cairns in Oxford, who recognized her talent. In 1943 she was appointed neurosurgeon at the Royal Free Hospital as well as worked in Bristol and adviser in neurosurgery for the southwest region of England. In 1947 she was elected neurological surgeon to the Middlesex Hospital, the first medical woman appointed to a senior position on the clinical staff of a London teaching hospital. To her surgical work she brought great professional skills, and as a neurosurgeon, she achieved international repute.

During World War II, she gained valuable experience treating patients with head injuries. She specialized in treating brain tumors and contributed to advances in surgical approaches for their removal. Known for her meticulous surgical technique and her careful attention to patient care, she documented her clinical observations and surgical innovations in several important medical publications. She performed lifesaving surgery on A.A. Milne, the author of Winnie-the-Pooh, two months after he suffered a brain hemorrhage. One of her most significant contributions was her work on the treatment of intracranial aneurysms and subarachnoid hemorrhage. She developed improved methods for their surgical management, thus reducing mortality rates in these high-risk procedures. Her approach emphasized precision and careful preoperative planning.

Beck suffered from myasthenia gravis and underwent a thymectomy in 1956 to treat a myasthenic crisis. She died at the Middlesex Hospital soon after the procedure from a pulmonary embolism on March 3, 1956 at the age of fifty-four.

References

• Obituary. BMJ March 17, 1956, p. 634.
• Diana Beck. Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diana_Beck