My friend Paula Heister, who has died aged 40 of cancer, trained in medicine and taught the subject at Cambridge University, but she also worked as a children’s author and illustrator. A 2025 book, Career Planning for Doctors by Caroline and Naomi Elton, features Paula’s illustrations and cites Paula herself as an example of doctors taking their careers beyond medical boundaries into other domains.
Harvard University had recently awarded her a fellowship, for a project bridging medicine and art in an exploration of dying.
