Mhairi Collie

 

Mhairi was brought up in Stirling, went to Edinburgh Medical School - gaining an MBChB in 1991 and MD in 1999, completed postgraduate training and research in Birmingham and London. She returned to Edinburgh in 2002 where she lives with her husband Bill Uttley and their children. 

 

In 2003, she co-founded the charity ‘Uganda Childbirth Injury Fund’ and has worked with them treating childbirth injury and obstetric fistula for several weeks every year since then in various African countries.

 

In 2024, she published a novel about this work - a fictionalised account of a surgeon and a fistula patient called The Bright Fabric of Life. The novel aims to raise awareness of, and funds to treat, this life-altering condition. 

 

During 2000, she spent a year volunteering for Medicines sans Frontiers which she describes as “an inspiring experience with an amazing organisation”.