Obituary

Not that I want to specialise in obituary-writing (I don't think), but wanted to post this as it's about Claire. I co-wrote it with her friend and colleague, Helen, and it will be appearing in the EMJ.

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Obituary: Claire Epstein (1977-2009)

The death of Claire Epstein, at the age of 31, from bowel cancer, has shocked and devastated her family and friends, and left a significant gap in the medical community in which she was so highly valued.

Claire Hazel Epstein was born in Newcastle on November 10th, 1977. The middle child of three, she remained at the centre of her close family throughout childhood and adulthood. She was educated at Durham High School, where her enormous popularity with both students and teachers made her the obvious choice for Head Girl, a role she undertook with just the right combination of humour and seriousness. Despite what her mother, Barbara, described as “an alarming lack of rhythm”, Claire worked hard to overcome this to be involved in school plays and musicals. This determination was to become one of Claire’s hallmarks in her chosen career of medicine.

Although Claire would have excelled in the Arts, of which she was very fond (especially History), her decision to specialise in science, in order to go to medical school, came as no surprise to her family. With their father, Howard, an orthopaedic surgeon, it was expected that at least one of the three siblings would follow in his footsteps and become a doctor. Claire’s younger brother, Michael, elucidated at the funeral that the lot fell to Claire after a tense game of ‘rock, paper, scissors’.

Claire’s genuine desire to help people, along with her keen scientific mind, made her an excellent student at The Royal London and St. Bartholomew’s Medical School, where she graduated with honours in paediatrics in 2000. She went on to work in various hospitals in Brighton and North East London, and at the time of her death was a Specialist Registrar at The Royal London Hospital, where she had impressed the staff there (as everywhere else) with her energy, quick wit, brilliant clinical acumen and fantastic interpersonal skills.

Always the champion of the underdog, Claire never shied away from unpopular patients, and would frequently see more than her fair share of those with alcohol intoxication, anger issues and poor hygiene while her colleagues hid in the tea room. She delivered first-class health care to all, and did so with the wide smile on her face that became a trademark to all who knew her.

Despite having a specialist interest in acute medicine, consultants at RLH were quick to identify that Claire’s first-rate clinical skills along with her attributes as a true team player would make her an excellent addition to the HEMS team, and they had asked her to apply. Similarly, departments that she had previously worked in were also already starting to “court” Claire and tempt her into a consultancy post with them.

Though Claire was extremely well liked by everyone she came into contact with, she was no pushover at work. Despite listing ‘sleeping’ as her only hobby on her Facebook profile, Claire was always punctual and was easily riled by colleagues’ poor timekeeping. She would often say, as people sauntered into work late, "I realise that everyone is unavoidably late once in a while, but would you please have the good manners to run the last couple of hundred yards so that you at least look a bit flushed and out of breath?"

Her sharp wit was balanced by her unfailing loyalty and generosity to those she counted as friends. Claire would drive for hours, shop for days, babysit at the drop of a bottle of gripe water, cover shifts, offer practical advice (served with cake and Earl Grey tea) and cancel her own plans for any of these friends. She was spectacularly generous with her time, and also had a knack for buying the perfect gift at just the right moment for those she loved. For those friends, and her boyfriend David, Claire is simply irreplaceable.

Claire was diagnosed with an extremely aggressive form of bowel cancer at the end of January, and died just over two weeks after diagnosis. Throughout her illness, she retained the humour, dignity, determination and selflessness that had come to define her. Even in the last days of her life, her priority was to make sure that everyone else was ok. It is no surprise that Claire’s last words (to the anaesthetist who came to intubate her) were “I’m sorry, I haven’t cleaned my teeth”. It is also no surprise that after her death on February 12th, her family found thank-you cards for the staff who had cared for her, written several days previously.

Nowhere was the love, admiration and respect for Claire so apparent as at her funeral, at Rossyln Hill Unitarian Chapel in Hampstead, on February 28th. It was so well attended - by school and university friends and teachers; colleagues from every hospital Claire had ever worked in, and friends and family - that many had to stand at the back in order to say their goodbyes to this exceptional young woman.

Claire Epstein is survived by her parents, Howard and Barbara Epstein, and her two brothers, Simon and Michael. She is buried at Highgate Cemetery.