All at TB Alert are saddened at the recent passing of our Vice President, Professor Dame Margaret Turner-Warwick.
Professor Dame Margaret Turner-Warwick achieved an enormous amount in her 92 years. She had an illustrious career as a leading thoracic physician and was appointed the first female president of the Royal College of Physicians.
Dame Margaret knew from a young age that she wished to study medicine, an ambition that was realised when she won a scholarship to study Physiology at Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford. Dame Margaret fell ill with tuberculosis in her final year, and received treatment in a Swiss sanatorium. This experience inspired her early research into TB and her long-standing drive to help eradicate the disease worldwide – which led her to accept an appointment as Vice President of TB Alert when the charity launched in 1999.
Dame Margaret completed her clinical training at University College Hospital and was appointed a consultant physician at the Elizabeth Garrett Anderson Hospital in 1960. In 1967, she became consultant physician at the London Chest and Brompton Hospitals and worked as a senior lecturer at the Institute of Diseases of the Chest during that same period. In 1972, Dame Margaret was appointed Professor of Thoracic Medicine at the Cardiothoracic Institute of London University. She later became dean of the institute, serving from 1984 to 1987.
She was president of the British Thoracic Society in 1982-83 and chairman of the Asthma Research Council from 1982 to 1987. Then, in 1989, Dame Margaret took up her post as president of the Royal College of Physicians.
In retirement, Dame Margaret served for three years as chairman of the Royal Devon and Exeter Healthcare Trust and was a member of the Nuffield Council on Bioethics from 1991 to 2000. She was appointed DBE in 1991.
She is survived by her husband and two daughters.
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