Margaret Turner Warwick Education Centre officially opened

Dame Margaret officially opened the Margaret Turner Warwick Education Centre for the NHLI at the Royal Brompton Campus, on Thursday 16 April 2015.

We were delighted to welcome Dame Margaret to NHLI on Thursday 16 April 2015 when she officially opened the Margaret Turner Warwick Education Centre at the Guy Scadding Building, Royal Brompton Campus. Following a short ribbon-cutting ceremony, staff and students were able to enjoy an afternoon cream tea with Dame Margaret and her husband Richard in celebration of the naming of the Centre.

It was a day of celebrations as Professor Alice Gast, President of Imperial, hosted a dinner in the evening in honour of Dame Margaret who celebrated her 90th birthday recently.  Professor Gast reminded guests of the extraordinary contribution Dame Margaret and Richard, have made to clinical medicine.  Both Dame Margaret and Richard were named ‘Giants’ in their field within the same month; Dame Margaret in Chest Medicine and Richard a giant of British urology and the Father of reconstructive urology.

Dame Margaret reminded guests of the importance of the collaborations with hospitals, and specifically mentioned the Brompton Hospital.  She also discussed the difficulties women can face in science; talking of the guilt that women face when balancing a career and family life.  She was thankful to her many colleagues and importantly her family without whose support she would not have succeeded.

Professor Dame Margaret Turner Warwick is one of the world's leading thoracic physicians.  She undertook important work on pulmonary fibrosis and established a clinical interest in interstitial lung disease, autoimmunity in the lung, and asthma. Dame Margaret was head and dean of the Cardiothoracic Institute (1984-1987), which became the National Heart and Lung Institute and later incorporated into Imperial College London. After a very distinguished career, she retired from this post in 1987 and was then elected as the first-ever female president (1989-1992) of the Royal College of Physicians in London in its 500-year history. Dame Margaret was later chairman of the Royal Devon and Exeter Health Care NHS Trust (1992-95).