Littlejohn studied medicine at the
University of Melbourne, graduating in 1922; her graduating class also included Dame
Kate Isabel Campbell,
Lucy Meredith Bryce and
Jean Macnamara. She then and joined the
Royal Victorian Eye and Ear Hospital as a medical resident. She began private practice in 1924 while continuing to work at the Eye and Ear Hospital, where she was promoted successively to the positions of assistant surgeon in 1929, honorary aural surgeon (the first woman to hold this position) in the same year, and senior surgeon in 1933. The University of Melbourne began offering qualifications in otolaryngology in 1930, and Littlejohn was the first recipient of the university's Diploma of Otolaryngology, in 1933. She was admitted as a Fellow of the
Royal Australasian College of Surgeons in 1935. During
World War II Littlejohn served as an ENT surgeon to the armed forces. In 1947 she was appointed clinical dean of the Eye and Ear Hospital and became the first woman elected to the University of Melbourne faculty of medicine. In 1948 Littlejohn established the Eye and Ear Hospital's Infant Deafness Investigation Clinic, and in the 1970s she advised the State of Victoria on establishing postgraduate
audiology training in Australia. == Recognition ==