# Lilly Dubowitz > Mediated Wiki article. Canonical URL: https://mediated.wiki/source/Lilly_Dubowitz > Markdown URL: https://mediated.wiki/source/Lilly_Dubowitz.md > Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lilly_Dubowitz > Source revision: 1341012639 > License: Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/) {{short description|British paediatrician (1920–2016)}} {{Use dmy dates|date=June 2020}} '''Lilly Magdalene Suzanne Dubowitz''' (née '''Sebők'''; 20 March 1930{{spnd}}14 March 2016) was a Hungarian-born British [paediatrician](/source/paediatrician) who together with her husband, the British [neurologist](/source/neurology) [Victor Dubowitz](/source/Victor_Dubowitz), developed the [Dubowitz Score](/source/Dubowitz_Score) to estimate [gestational age](/source/Gestational_age_(obstetrics)). ==Early life== Lilly Sebők was born in 1930 in [Budapest](/source/Budapest), the daughter of Hedwig and Julius Sebők.{{cite news |last=Mercuri |first=Eugenio |date=8 May 2016 |title=Lilly Dubowitz obituary |url=https://www.theguardian.com/science/2016/may/08/lilly-dubowitz-obituary |department=Science |work=[The Guardian](/source/The_Guardian) |location=London |accessdate=23 June 2020}} Her father was a Jewish textile worker; he was sent to a Nazi labour camp during the Second World War while Lilly and her mother spent the war in hiding, using falsified papers from the Swedish embassy.{{cite journal |last1=Vass |first1=Géza |title=Dubowitz Lilly emlékére (1930. március 20.–2016. március 14.) |trans-title=In memoriam Lilly Dubowitz (20 March 1930 – 14 March 2016) |journal=[Orvosi Hetilap](/source/Orvosi_Hetilap) |date=July 2017 |volume=158 |issue=28 |pages=1116–1117 |doi=10.1556/650.2017.HO2576 |pmid=28691882|url=http://real.mtak.hu/56303/1/650.2017.ho2576.pdf |language=Hungarian}} In 1948, Lilly and her mother migrated to Australia, where they joined her mother's family. She began working as a waitress and in a [biochemistry](/source/biochemistry) laboratory while studying medicine part-time at the [University of Melbourne](/source/University_of_Melbourne), graduating in 1956. ==Medical career== In 1958, Sebők moved to London to take up a postgraduate position in [endocrinology](/source/endocrinology) at [Hammersmith Hospital](/source/Hammersmith_Hospital). She met the South African-born [neurologist](/source/neurologist) [Victor Dubowitz](/source/Victor_Dubowitz) on Easter 1960; they were engaged two weeks later and married within three months. Soon afterwards, husband and wife moved to Sheffield, where Lilly took up a temporary registrar post in [paediatrics](/source/paediatrics) and discovered a strong interest in [neonatology](/source/neonatology), the study of newborns. She began working on newborn research at night while caring for her own four young children during the day. She and Victor collaborated on the development of a tool to estimate the [gestational age](/source/Gestational_age_(obstetrics)) of a newborn by examining its neurological signs as well as anatomical features. The test, titled the [Dubowitz Score](/source/Dubowitz_Score), was published in 1970 and was rapidly adopted around the world for distinguishing mature but malnourished babies from premature babies who were appropriately small for their age.{{cite news |title=Obituary: Lilly Dubowitz |url=https://www.thetimes.com/article/lilly-dubowitz-bgh8z2j9f |work=[The Times](/source/The_Times) |location=London |date=14 June 2016 |access-date=23 June 2020}} In the United States, to perform the test was known as "Dubowitzing the baby".{{cite news |last=Tessler |first=Gloria |date=5 August 2016 |title=Lilly Dubowitz |url=https://www.pressreader.com/uk/the-jewish-chronicle/20160805/282484298142679 |work=[The Jewish Chronicle](/source/The_Jewish_Chronicle) |via=[PressReader](/source/PressReader) |accessdate=13 May 2020}} Lilly and Victor Dubowitz returned to London's Hammersmith Hospital in 1972, where Lilly pioneered the use of [cranial ultrasound](/source/cranial_ultrasound) and, later, [magnetic resonance imaging](/source/magnetic_resonance_imaging) to assess the brains of newborns. In 1980, husband and wife collaborated again to develop a systematic method for the neurological examination of the newborn. Their assessment paid special attention to premature infants, who at the time were widely felt to be impossible to assess. Lilly Dubowitz continued working at Hammersmith Hospital until her retirement in 1995. ==Later life== After her retirement, Dubowitz undertook an extensive investigation of her lost uncle, Stefan Sebők, an architect who had disappeared in Russia during [World War II](/source/World_War_II). Her research, which was gathered across three continents and came largely from [KGB](/source/KGB) records, was eventually published in her 2012 book titled ''In Search of a Forgotten Architect''. She died on 14 March 2016. ==References== {{Reflist}} {{Authority control}} {{DEFAULTSORT:Dubowitz, Lilly}} Category:1930 births Category:2016 deaths Category:20th-century British medical doctors Category:20th-century British women medical doctors Category:British paediatricians Category:British women paediatricians Category:Hungarian emigrants to Australia Category:Hungarian emigrants to England Category:Hungarian people of Jewish descent Category:Melbourne Medical School alumni Category:Medical doctors from Budapest Category:Physicians of Hammersmith Hospital Category:Jews who emigrated to escape Nazism --- Adapted from the Wikipedia article [Lilly Dubowitz](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lilly_Dubowitz) by Wikipedia contributors ([contributor history](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lilly_Dubowitz?action=history)). Available under [Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/). Changes may have been made.