Ginette Harrison, General Practitioner and Mountaineer (b 1958; q Bristol 1981; MD; MRCGP), died in an avalanche on Mount Dhaulagiri in Nepal on 24 October 1999. She successfully combined her career in medicine with becoming one of the world's leading female high altitude climbers.

Her passion for rock climbing developed on the cliffs of the Avon Gorge while studying medicine at Bristol University. After qualifying she spent two years researching her special interest of high altitude physiology at the University of Colorado, completing her MD in 1988.

In the 1980s she interspersed hospital training posts in Britain with climbing and research expeditions to the Himalayas. The British Bhutan expedition of 1986 extended her high altitude experience over the 7000 m mark and she was leader and Medical …