Dr Sheela Purkayastha is a Specialist in Gynaecology. She works at BUPA's Cromwell Hospital in Kensington and Chelsea, as well as Fitzrovia Hospital London. Dr Purkayastha graduated in 1969 from The Calcutta Medical College in India and her academic achievements included a National Scholarship and the Maharaja Gwalior Gold Medal for getting top marks in exams as part of her medical and surgical degree course. She then went on to study at postgraduate level at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences in New Delhi, where she achieved her Doctor of Medicine (MD) qualification in 1974.
After working in Iran as a Specialist in Obstetrics and Gynaecology for a few years, Dr Purkayastha moved to the UK in 1979 and passed the exam for Membership of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists in 1982. Dr Purkayastha was then granted Fellowship of the Royal College in 1997 and Fellow of the Faculty of Family Planning and Reproductive Health in 2006.


She is also recognised by The British Society for Colposcopy and Cervical Pathology as an educator in Colposcopy, a specialist technique used to examine the cervix after a woman gets an abnormal smear test result. Additionally, Dr Purkayastha is an instructor in Family Planning with accreditation from the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists. Besides this, she is part of the British Menopause Society and ran Chelsea and Westminster Hospital's Menopause Clinic for many years. Another of Dr Purkayastha's achievements is being the sole author of Postreproductive Gynaecology, a book published in 1999.