Professor Edith M Hillan: Biography
Edith Hillan is a Professor at the University of Toronto where her academic appointment is held in the
Faculty of Nursing. Since qualifying as a nurse and midwife, Edith has worked in clinical practice,
research and education both in the UK and abroad. Her MSc thesis entitled 'Starting Labour' examined
the use of prostaglandins for cervical ripening and induction of labour. Her PhD thesis examined both
women’s experiences of caesarean delivery and the immediate, short-term and long-term effects of
the operation. Her research has been mainly clinically based and she has led programs of research
which examined issues such as women’s health after childbirth, pain relief in labour and the
organisation of care in the postnatal period.
She holds an MPhil in Law & Ethics in Medicine from the Faculty of Law, University of Glasgow (1994),
a PhD from the Faculty of Medicine, University of Glasgow (1990) and an MSc from the University of
Strathclyde (1983). Before moving to Toronto in 2001, she held a Personal Chair of Midwifery at the
University of Glasgow where she was responsible for the introduction of the Master of Midwifery
degree at the University. She also served for a number of years as a Council member of the Royal
College of Midwives and on a number of its’ constituent committees.
At the University of Toronto, Edith served two successive five year terms as Vice-Provost where her
primary area of responsibility was academic personnel issues, including policy development. The
Office has responsibility for the development and oversight of a wide variety of policies and programs
to support the institutional goal of appointing, tenuring and retaining the best educated, most
intellectually creative and most diverse faculty it can identify.