Margaret Turner-Warwick


Dame Margaret Elizabeth Turner-Warwick DBE FRACP FACP FRCP FMedSci was a British medical doctor and thoracic specialist. She was the first woman president of the Royal College of Physicians and, later, chairman of the Royal Devon and Exeter Health Care NHS Trust.

Family

Dame Margaret was born 19 Nov 1924 in the Registration District of St. George, Hanover Square, London; she was the daughter of William Harvey Moore, Q.C., and his wife, Maud Kirkdale Baden-Powell, who were married on 23 March 1920. Dame Margaret was the granddaughter of Sir George Baden-Powell and Frances Wilson.
Dame Margaret married urologist Richard Turner-Warwick in 1950. They had two daughters, Lynne and Gillian.

Education

Dame Margaret was educated at the City of London School for Girls and Walthamstow Hall before attending The Maynard School in Exeter from age 12 to age 18, where she became friends with Jane Gibson, who also later became a notable female scientist. In memoirs written for The Maynard School, Dame Margaret recalls how she and Jane volunteered to be 'lab girls', setting up the chemistry apparatus before classes - a way to both learn chemistry and also avoid school prayers, until 'rumbled' by their teacher.. She finished her schooling at St Paul's Girls School.
Dame Margaret went on to study medicine at Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford, from which she matriculated in 1943) and, later, at University College Hospital, London. In her last term before her final university exams, she was diagnosed with tuberculosis and spent many months recovering in a sanatorium in Switzerland. After qualifying, she practiced medicine at University College London and Royal Brompton Hospital.

Career

Dame Margaret decided to specialize in thoracic medicine, in which field it was a time of great change. She helped increase these changes with her colleagues Jack Pepys and Deborah Doniach. They expanded the understanding and measuring of lung function to include the immunology of the lung, and particularly of the fibrosing lung diseases. She also focused on asthma. In her research, she discovered that rates of forceful exhalation required different treatments. Her most notable clinical trial was with inhaled corticosteroids, which have formed a mainstay of modern treatment.
Dame Margaret became a senior lecturer at the Institute of Diseases of the Chest. In 1972 she was appointed Professor of Thoracic Medicine at the Cardiothoracic Institute, later Emeritus on her retirement in 1987. She was also Dean from 1984–87 at the Cardiothoracic Institute. She was a member of the Nuffield Council on Bioethics, 1991–2000. She was elected an Honorary Fellow of Lady Margaret Hall in 1989.

Legacy

There is an Annual Margaret Turner-Warwick Respiratory Lecture, started in 2006, as a collaboration between the National Heart and Lung Institute and the Royal Brompton and Harefield NHS Foundation Trust.
On 16 April 2015, Turner-Warwick officially opened the Margaret Turner-Warwick Education Centre for the National Heart and Lung Institute at the Royal Brompton Campus.

Positions