Irene Margaret Stanford McEwan née Cade was a consultant radiologist in Portsmouth. She was born in London on 15 January 1925, the second daughter of Sir Stanford Cade, the surgeon, and Margaret Hester née Agate, the daughter of the organist at Paisley Abbey. Irene was educated at Queen's College, Harley Street, Aylesbury College and Malvern Girls' College. She studied medicine at the Royal Free Hospital, where she won the Gwendolynne Lynn prize in surgery. She did house appointments at the Royal Free, East Ham Memorial Hospital, the Royal Sussex Hospital in Brighton and Great Ormond Street. Attracted to her father's specialty, she studied hypophysectomy for carcinoma of the breast and prostate, making this the subject of her MS thesis in 1959. Later she qualified in radiotherapy and was appointed consultant radiotherapist in Portsmouth in 1962, where she became an exponent of megavoltage therapy in hyperbaric oxygen. She died on 28 November 2000.