CILENTO, PHYLLIS DOROTHY (1894-1987), medical practitioner and journalist, was
born on 13 March 1894 at Rockdale, Sydney, only child of New South Wales-born
parents Charles Thomas McGlew, shipbroker and coal merchant, and his wife Alice
Lane, née Walker. The family moved to Adelaide when Phyllis was a small child. She
attended Tormore House school and studied medicine at the University of Adelaide
(MB, BS, 1918), where she played hockey and tennis, captaining the women’s tennis
team for three years and winning a Blue. In 1918 she became engaged to (Sir)
Raphael (`Ray’) Cilento, a fellow medical student. After graduating she worked as
a house surgeon at the Adelaide Hospital.
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Australian Dictionary of Biography Online
Lady Phyllis Cilento was born in Sydney on 13th March 1894 and educated in Adelaide, graduating MB, BS from the University of Adelaide. She did postgraduate work at hospitals and clinics in Malaysia, New Guinea, London, Paris and New York. Later moving to Brisbane with her husband, (doctor and medical administrator, Sir Ralph Cilento) she became a prominent member of the Queensland women's movement and highly influential in broader areas of public health. She was a medical columnist, broadcaster, journalist and author of several books. Her interests lay in nutition, vitamin therapy, family planning and antenatal and childcare. She founded the Queensland Mothercraft Assocation in 1930; the Queensland branch of the Business and Professional Women's Club and was president of the Queensland Medical Women's Association (1938-1947).
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c. 1940 - c. 1960
Career in journalism active
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Australian Women's Register