Ginsburg was born in London on 19 October 1926.[1] Her parents were Russian-Jewish political refugees who had migrated in 1921 following the Russian Revolution. Her father, Naum Ginsburg, was a civil engineer who had been imprisoned for sheltering Leon Trotsky; her mother, Anya Bielenky, a pianist, had bribed a Bolshevik official to release her husband.[2]
Ginsburg began her medical career in research at St Thomas' Hospital in London in 1954.[2] There, she studied changes to blood circulation during pregnancy and menopause.[1] In 1961, she moved to Charing Cross Hospital, where she became a research fellow and senior lecturer in obstetrics. She moved to the department of obstetrics and gynaecology at the Royal Free Hospital in 1966,[1] as a consultant endocrinologist.[2] At the Royal Free Hospital, she helped to set up a service for gynaecological endocrinology[1] and established one of the first menopause clinics in Britain.[2] When gonadotropin hormones first became available for therapeutic use in the late 1960s, Ginsburg designed the first ovulation induction programme as a fertility treatment.[1]
Throughout her career, Ginsburg published more than 250 articles. She wrote one book (The Circulation in the Female: From the Cradle to the Grave, 1989) and co-edited two others (Drug Therapy in Reproductive Endocrinology, 1996, and Sex Steroids and the Cardiovascular System , 1998).[1] She was a founding member of the British Fertility Society.[3]
Personal life
Ginsburg was married to Jack Henry, an editor for Reuters, with whom she had two sons and a daughter. While in labour with her daughter, she monitored her own circulation for research.[2] Her brother was the politician David Ginsburg.[1] She was seriously injured in a car accident in 1968, and was told she might never walk again; she returned to work but walked with a cane for the rest of her life. She died on 8 April 2004 from kidney cancer.[2]
