Born in Toronto, she attended primary and high school in that city, and after undergraduate school at Queen's University she moved on to medical school at McGill University. The type I diabetes mellitus she had experienced from early childhood left her blind by the middle of her final year at medical school.

For virtually anyone in her situation, just the completion of medical school would have been a remarkable feat. But Jane was determined to continue with her training. Indeed, and with surprising agreement among the necessary bodies, she successfully completed the Royal College and Quebec examinations in internal medicine some 5 years later. One can only imagine the kinds of hardships she experienced en route, but there was never a word of complaint, just an impish smile and infectious laugh. Moreover, in the process she brought a huge dose of humanity to every place she worked and to every person with whom she came in contact.

Jane launched her careers as an internist and superb teacher at the Montreal General Hospital, where she had trained, and later went on to study and practise palliative care medicine. She first practised this specialty in Montreal and then moved to Toronto, where she was a senior fellow at Massey College.

Throughout her career, patients were sometimes initially unsure about how to react to having a blind doctor looking after them. However, I'm sure that all of them subsequently felt that no other doctor had ever really appreciated their problem or handled their case as well. The nation joined her colleagues in celebrating her unprecedented accomplishments when she was inducted into the Order of Canada.

As a complication of her diabetes Jane developed severe coronary artery disease, and then the final blow of breast cancer supervened. These illnesses that would have paralysed virtually anyone else seemed to give her more insight into the way doctors should deal with their patients. She recorded these thoughts for us, with her ever-present sense of humour, in journals like CMAJ (Poulson J. The days that will still be mine. CMAJ 1998;158[12]:1633-6; Poulson J. Dead tired. CMAJ 1998;158[13]:1748-50).

Jane Poulson, athlete and author, musician and researcher, student, teacher and role model, doctor and patient, colleague and friend, died a hero Aug. 28, 2001, aged 49. She will be sorely missed, but she has left an indelible mark on all whose lives she touched. — Dr. Phil Gold, Montreal

Copyright 2001 Canadian Medical Association or its licensors