What attracted you to a career in medicine?

As a child, my link to the medical world was my father’s work as an environmental health officer, working closely with the local Medical Officer of Health. At school, I enjoyed science and art and at one time, had my heart set on architecture. I remember visiting a pathology department and not liking the smell of the labs!

How did you get into clinical research?

At the beginning of my career I did not have a clear ambition in medicine – rather a wish for an interesting life. I qualified in Manchester and did my early jobs there in orthopaedics, renal medicine and paediatrics. This was good experience and also helped me recognize my own limitations - I am not very good with my hands, so surgery and laboratory work were not for me – and I discovered I did not have a particular rapport with children! I was not attracted by primary care – for me it is better to know a lot about a little, rather than a little about a lot. So I decided to take Membership of the Royal College of Physicians (MRCP).

I moved to London to do this – primarily, I must admit, to explore the city – and there I found I really enjoyed chest medicine. I was thinking of carrying on through the London senior house officer rotation. But by then I had a boyfriend (now husband) who was also a doctor, and several more years of getting up at night and arranging jobs and on calls to fit both our schedules was off-putting.

Fortuitously, a job was advertised in the Medical Research Council (MRC) Tuberculosis and Chest Diseases Unit (TCDU) at the National Heart and Lung Institute at the Royal Brompton Hospital. I remember questioning the basis for our decisions in medicine and the lack of an evidence base for many of them and I was attracted by a life style that offered the opportunity to immerse myself in these important issues, rather than the hurly burly existence of the hospital doctor. My boss at the time, Sir John Batten, suggested I talked to the Director of the Unit, Professor Wallace Fox, about it – just as we met him in the car park! Serendipity has played a large part in my career – and when opportunities come up, you have to make the most of them!