Thérèse Bertrand-Fontaine

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Thérèse Bertrand-Fontaine was a French physician and researcher born on 15 October 1895 in Paris. She came from a distinguished scientific family and, after marrying Philippe Fontaine in 1919, raised two children, Martine and Rémi. She studied at Collège Sévigné and the Paris Faculty of Medicine, trained as a surgeon from 1922 to 1926, became head of a clinic in 1926, and in 1930 became a hospital doctor—the first woman to work as a doctor in Paris hospitals.

During World War II, she led a department at Maison Dubois (now Fernand Widal hospital) and helped the French Resistance, organizing passive defense at Lariboisière hospital and serving on the Medical Resistance Steering Committee. For her wartime work she received the Medal of the Resistance.

After the war, she headed a department at Beaujon hospital in Paris from 1945 to 1961 and led the Medical Society of Hospitals until 1961. Her research focused on infectious and parasitic diseases, liver and kidney diseases, nephrology, and amyloidosis. She died on 24 December 1987 in Paris.