A Tribute to Dr. Frances Conley: 1940-2024

September 25, 2024 - By Kathryn Sill
 

During Women in Medicine Month, the Department of Neurosurgery honors the memory and contribution of Frances K. Conley, MS, MD, who passed away on August 5. Thank you, Dr. Conley, for your contribution to field of medicine, neurosurgery, and for being an inspiration to women in medicine—you led by example.

Frances K. Conley, MS, MD, was a trailblazer for women in neurosurgery. At her birth in 1940, women’s careers were often limited to homemaker, teacher, or nurse, but Conley would challenge the status quo by becoming the first woman to become a tenured professor of neurosurgery, joining Stanford as faculty in 1975.

“Dr. Conley’s groundwork was foundational for women in neurosurgery and our department,” Odette Harris, MD, MPH, professor of neurosurgery said. “She was a triple threat, excelling in academics, clinical service, and innovative research. Her legacy redefined gender representation both at Stanford Neurosurgery and beyond into the broader academic neurosciences.”

It is through the example of Conley, that the Department of Neurosurgery faculty is nearly 25% female, an unprecedented level compared to other Neurosurgery programs around the country, and the world.

[Dr. Conley] was a triple threat, excelling in academics, clinical service, and innovative research. Her legacy redefined gender representation both at Stanford Neurosurgery and beyond into the broader academic neurosciences.

Conley, who grew up in Palo Alto, spent much of her free time roaming the Stanford campus as a child, where her father was employed as a professor of geochemistry. Growing up she witnessed the example of her childhood practitioner who was a woman, and by her teenage years, Conley knew she wanted to also pursue medicine.

Conley began her first two years of undergraduate training at Bryn Mawr in Pennsylvania, the first institution to offer graduate studies to women. She later transferred to Stanford to finish our her undergraduate studies.

In 1961, Conley became one of twelve women accepted into Stanford medical school, amongst their 60 male peer classmates.

Conley was quoted an NIH article saying, “When I started medical school, I did not deliberately choose to buck the system and defy the status quo, but I was mesmerized, truly fascinated, by surgery. Unexpectedly, I fell in love with the bright lights of the operating theater, the world of sterile instruments, the drama of life and death, the actors decisive, cool under pressure, with magic hands.”

Although she was discouraged from pursuing medicine as a woman, she went on to complete her neurosurgery residency at Stanford and became the fifth woman to become certified by the American Board of Neurological Surgery.

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It was during her time in medical school where she met her husband Phil Conley, a 1956 Olympian. They would bond over their love for athletics, and Fran would continue to break the norms for women even outside of medicine, becoming the first woman to race the San Francisco Bay to Breakers in 1971. The Conleys were also generous in their altruistic efforts to the university throughout the years, specifically focused on supporting students financially.

During her career at Stanford, Conley mentored different medical students and residents, two of which now reside as faculty at Stanford—Harris and Lawrence Shuer, MD, professor of neurosurgery.

“I met Dr. Conley as a medical student during my rotations at VA Palo Alto Health Care,” Harris said. “I looked up to her. She was driven by a deep care for patients and carried that out as a full professor, chief of staff, and using innovative techniques in the field of spine surgery. It was an honor to be at the same place as her, and she was supportive in my training.”

She was a role model for the women residents who have continued to come through our program.

Shuer also had the opportunity to learn from Conley when he began his residency at Stanford in 1978. At the time Conley was faculty, mentoring Shuer in both the clinical setting and in research, when he joined her laboratory.

“She was an outstanding physician and surgeon and patiently trained me and my co-residents,” Shuer said. “In the clinical setting, Dr. Conley was pivotal in bringing instrumentation for lumbar spinal fusions to our department and trained us in it. In her lab we investigated the effects of anticoagulation and metastatic brain tumors. We also studied the effect of infection on a low-grade infection on primary tumors of the brain.”