Professor Dame Lesley Regan
Professor of Obstetrics and Gynaecology at Imperial College London and Head of Department at St Mary's Hospital. At Imperial, she chairs the People and Culture Committee (Athena SWAN) and is Co-Director of the Women's Health Research Centre and UK Pregnancy Baby Bio Bank. She is also Secretary General of FIGO, a member of the NHS Assembly and Chair of the Charity Wellbeing of Women.
Speaker's biography
Having graduated from the Royal Free Hospital School of Medicine, London, in 1980 Professor Regan pursued her career at Addenbrooke's Hospital, Cambridge, where she first became enthused by clinical and laboratory research, completing her MD on miscarriage. She went on to set up the world’s largest recurrent miscarriage clinic at St Mary’s Hospital in London.
Professor Regan was the 30th President (2016-2019) of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, only the second woman to ever hold this role and the first in sixty-four years. During her tenure as PRCOG she co-chaired the National Women’s Health Task Force with Jackie Doyle Price MP (then Health Minister) leading to the publication of “Better for Women”. This far-reaching and hard-hitting RCOG report promotes a life-course approach to the delivery of women’s health services. It also shines a light on many historically taboo subjects such as period problems, pelvic pain, contraception, abortion, menopausal and mental health issues.
Professor Regan has written several best selling lay books for women on pregnancy and miscarriage including Your Pregnancy Week by Week. Her book, Miscarriage: What Every Woman Needs to Know explores how one in four pregnancies ends in miscarriage and how despite being the most common complication of pregnancy it remains poorly understood.
Professor Regan was awarded a Doctorate of Science in 2015 and a DBE for her services to women’s health in the 2020 New Year’s Honours List.
