Temmerman is a gynaecologist, but so much more than that. She’s the chief of obstetrics and gynaecology at the University Hospital in Ghent, as well as the head of the International Centre for Reproductive Health (ICRH), where she battles – the word is not too strong – to see that women in the developing world have access to health care.
Temmerman has two clear goals: to stop the spread of aids in the third world and to give women the sort of autonomy over their reproductive health that women in the first world have had since the 1960s.
Last week, Temmerman won the Lifetime Achievement Award given since last year by the British Medical Journal. In 2009, it was won by Professor Judith Longstaff Mackay, Senior Adviser to the World Lung Foundation, who campaigns against the tobacco industry’s attempts to expand tobacco use in poor countries.
By coincidence, earlier last week on International Women’s Day, Temmerman published her latest book, Vrouwen onder druk (Women under Pressure), co-written with ICRH colleague Els Leye. The book covers the various forms of often violent pressure women face worldwide, from child marriages to genital mutilation to sexual violence against refugees and asylum seekers.
Besides having been voted best gynaecologist in the world by her peers in the profession and gaining the title of Most Admirable Gentenaar from the readers of Het Nieuwsblad/ De Gentenaar newspapers, Temmerman is also a senator, sitting for the Flemish socialist party sp.a.
“I think I’m the proof that a scientist doesn’t necessarily have to be someone who’s shut up in a laboratory, but who is constantly questioning how to use that knowledge to help people,” she commented in a statement. “Winning this prize means a lot to me because it is a recognition of our work – not only its scientific worth but also the importance of combining science, social values and responsibility,” she said.