Monaghan, Cathleen (Sister Mary Aquinas) (1919–85), Missionary Sister of St Columban and physician, was born 30 August 1919 in Cartron, Cappataggle, Loughrea, Co. Galway, second child among two sons and seven daughters of Bartholomew Monaghan, farmer, and Ellen Monaghan (née O'Sullivan). She was educated at the local national school; St Michael's Loreto Convent, Navan, Co. Meath; UCG, where she studied science for one year; and UCD (1941–7). She joined the Missionary Sisters of St Columban at Caheracon, Co. Clare (14 April 1939), and on 1 September 1939 received the religious habit, taking the name ‘Sister Mary Aquinas’. She made her first religious profession on 2 September 1941 and her final profession on 2 September 1947. Sister Aquinas was among the first four nuns to qualify as physicians in Ireland, following the removal (1936) of the papal prohibition on nuns becoming medical doctors and midwives. Sister M. Gabriel O'Mahoney, a Missionary Sister of St Columban; Sister Patricia O'Keefe, a Holy Rosary Sister, and Sister Visitation Chambers, a Medical Missionary of Mary, were the other three members of that pioneer group. Sister Aquinas qualified in 1947 and did her residencies in Our Lady of Lourdes Tuberculosis Sanatorium, Dún Laoghaire, Co. Dublin, and the Coombe Maternity Hospital, Dublin.
Her first mission assignment was to Hanyang, China, but because of the communist takeover and expulsion of missionaries from the country she was reassigned to Hong Kong, where the Columban Sisters had been requested to take over a naval hospital which had been converted into the Ruttonjee Tuberculosis Sanatorium. This hospital was free and was supported by wealthy people in the colony. It functioned as an interfaith nonsectarian hospital for the poor, the majority of whom were refugees from mainland China. Tuberculosis was a serious problem in the colony. Sister Aquinas went for further studies to the Brompton Chest Hospital, London, to prepare for her work in Hong Kong. On her arrival in Hong Kong (17 January 1949) she was appointed medical superintendent of the sanatorium, which opened 24 February 1949. Sister-doctor Aquinas and Sister-doctor Gabriel O'Mahoney were highly respected in this British colony. Government officials, when sick, went to one of them for medical consultations.
Under her administration the bed capacity of the hospital increased, and it became a centre of research for the treatment of tuberculosis. She continued her studies and obtained her TDD (Tuberculosis Disease Diploma, University of Wales, Cardiff, 1953); FCCP (Fellow of the American College of Chest Physicians, 1955); MRCP (Edinburgh, honours, 1973); and FRCP (Edinburgh, honours, 1977). On completion of her year in Cardiff she spent some time in the Scandinavian countries visiting sanatoria, and also visited the Pasteur Institute in Paris. In 1960 she did postgraduate studies at the London Hospital and at the Post-Graduate Medical School, Hammersmith, London.
From 1952 she lectured in clinical medicine in the University of Hong Kong and in the Chinese University, Hong Kong. Her close collaboration with the Medical Research Council in England and the Hong Kong Tuberculosis Treatment Service, for whom she carried out detailed studies and trials, was a significant contribution in the management of the disease worldwide and on the surgical treatment of spinal tuberculosis. Gradually she built up a worldwide reputation as an authority on tuberculosis and related medical problems.
Sister Aquinas was invited to many countries and lectured in five continents, mainly in the developing countries of Asia and Africa. In later years she devoted a good deal of her time to lecturing in Africa, helped in the alleviation of communicable diseases in central Africa, and worked in Ethiopia in 1984. In 1983 she undertook a Dow Chemical lecture tour in the Philippines; visited hospitals and institutions in Beijing, Xian, Shanghai, and Hangzhou, at the invitation of the Chinese Medical Association; and in 1984 spoke at symposia on tuberculosis at several venues in Pakistan.
Sister Aquinas represented Hong Kong and read papers at regional, national, and international conferences in New Delhi, Los Angeles, Toronto, New York (twice), Amsterdam, London, Tokyo, Kuala Lumpur, Sydney, Taipei (twice), York, Eastbourne, Edinburgh, and Kathmandu. She attended other conferences as a delegate in England, Canada, the US, Moscow, Australia, Japan, the Philippines, Peru, Switzerland, Brussels, Prague, Sweden, South Africa, China, Holland, India, and Ireland. Sister Aquinas wrote extensively in international and local medical journals, sharing the results of her research and her long years of practical experience. Among the many awards conferred on her were the WHO fellowship in tuberculosis (1952–3 in the University of Wales, Cardiff); the Sir Robert Philip gold medal (1965) from the London Chest and Heart Foundation (she was the first woman to receive this award); and an honorary doctorate in social science from the University of Hong Kong (1978). In 1980 she was awarded an OBE, and on 23 July 1985 she was presented to Queen Elizabeth II in the royal tea tent at the Buckingham Palace garden party.
She made a significant contribution to medicine in Hong Kong by her membership of many medical and related organisations. She was a committee member, representing the British Medical Association, on the following committees: the Hong Kong Medical Council, Pharmacy and Poisons Board, Action Committee against Narcotics, the Hong Kong branch of the Medical and Health Services standing committee on treatment and rehabilitation of drug abusers, the Environmental Protection Advisory Committee (a special committee on air pollution (1980)), the Duchess of Kent Children's Orthopaedic Hospital, Hong Kong, and the examination planning committee of the Hong Kong College of General Practitioners. She was also an executive member of the Catholic Marriage Advisory Council of Hong Kong and chairman of the medical subcommittee. From 1981 she was chairman of the Society for the Aid of Rehabilitation of Drug Abusers. In 1983 Sister Aquinas was vice-chairman of the Community Advice Bureau, vice-president of the Hong Kong Medical Association, vice-president of the Federation of Medical Societies of Hong Kong, and president of the Hong Kong branch of the British Medical Association; and for nine years honorary secretary of the Soroptimist International of Hong Kong, of which she was president 1979–81. She was editor of the Bulletin of the Hong Kong Medical Association and served a term as master of the Hong Kong branch of the Doctors’ Guild of SS Luke, Cosmas, and Damien. By the time of her death, tuberculosis had been largely eliminated in Hong Kong.
Sister Aquinas died in Ruttonjee sanatorium (28 November 1985) after a short illness and is buried in Happy Valley cemetery, Hong Kong. A Sister Mary Aquinas Memorial Fund for the ongoing study of tuberculosis was established after her death. The Sister Mary Aquinas Museum is on one of the floors of the new Ruttonjee 650-bed general hospital, which opened in 1990. The original Ruttonjee hospital was handed over to secular management in December 1988.