Mercy Sadka

Sadka was born in Singapore on 22 July 1923.^[1] She was the second daughter of Sassoon Samuel Sadka and his wife, Sarah who were of Jewish heritage.^[2] Her older sister Emily Sadka (1920–1968) was an historian. She educated at Raffles Girls School and later Cheltenham Ladies College in England.^[2] She graduated from the University of Oxford in 1947 with a Bachelor of Medicine, Bachelor of Surgery.^[1]

Sadka moved to Australia in 1948 as resident medical officer at the Royal Perth Hospital (RPH). She worked with ophthalmologist Ida Mann on a study of blindness among Indigenous Australians in the Kimberley.^[1]

Postgraduate studies in neurology took her to London and Boston, where she worked at Massachusetts General Hospital with Raymond Adams, Miller Fisher and Robert Schwab.^[2]

Returning to Western Australia in 1959, she was appointed consultant neurologist at RPH.^[2] In the same year, she introduced the use of electroencephalography (EEG) to Western Australia.^[3] She also opened the Stroke Rehabilitation Unit in the Shenton Park Annex of RPH.^[1]

Sadka was appointed an Officer of the Order of Australia in the 1988 Australia Day Honours for "service to medicine, particularly in the field of neurology".^[4]

Sadka retired in 1988.^[1] She died on 28 January 2001.