Researching early women anaesthetists, particularly before anaesthesia practice was a recognised medical specialty, was always going to be like finding a needle in a hay stack. Yet this was the task set before the curator at the Geoffrey Kaye Museum of Anaesthetic History, as she endeavoured to unearth traces of these largely invisible pioneers for the museum’s latest exhibition, The Rare Privilege of Medicine: Women Anaesthetists in Australia and New Zealand.

The search for these women travelled many oceans and navigated many obstacles, hampered by redevelopment works at specialty medical colleges in England, earthquakes in New Zealand, and water inundation of archives closer to home. Eventually, a handful of women’s stories were uncovered to be included in the exhibition. These represent only a small fraction of the rich research material still out there, waiting to be found. This paper will take you on a journey across nations and archives and show that searching for needles in haystacks is most definitely worth the effort.