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Richard Turner-Warwick

CBE, DSc, DM, MCh, FRCP, FRCS, FACS, FRACS Hon

Born in 1925, Richard Turner-Warwick was educated at Bedales School, Oxford University and The Middlesex Hospital Medical School in London.

At Oxford he took an honours degree in Natural Science and was captain of Oriel College Boat Club.  He rowed in the 1944 & 1945 Oxford Boat Races (which were not officially recognised because of the War) but then won with Oxford in 1946 when he was also President of the OUBC.


During his pre-clinical training at The Middlesex Hospital he obtained the Senior Broderip Scholarship and a number of other Medals and Prizes – qualifying in 1949. From 1949 until 1960, mostly at The Middlesex Hospital, he had an unusually extensive specialist training in internal medicine and pathology – and then in abdominal, thoracic, gynecological, and plastic surgery. He trained in urological surgery with Sir Eric Riches and with Sir David Innes Williams at the Institute of Urology in London.

His Oxford MSc thesis was on neuroanatomy. He obtained his FRCS in 1954, his MRCP in 1955, his Oxford Doctorate of Medicine in 1957 and his Oxford Mastership of Surgery in 1962. He took over the Urological Department at The Middlesex Hospital, when Sir Eric Riches retired in 1963, and created a pioneering urodynamic unit as an integral part of his routine clinical service. Since about 1975 he confined his personal surgical interest and practice to functional reconstruction.

He was elected to FACS (Hon) in 1997, to FRACS (Hon) in 1981, to elite Fellowship of the Urological Society of Australia in 1988 and the Honorary Fellowship of the American Association of Genito-Urinary Surgeons in 2002. He was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Science in New York in 1988. During the 40 years between 1965 and 2005 he undertook more than 300 operating surgical teaching visits mostly in America, Australia and New Zealand, but also in Europe and the UK.

Read more from Dominic Hodgson about Richard Turner Warwick's career in reconstructive surgery.


Living Witness Programme

He was interviewed by Dominic Hodgson for a series called "Standing on the Shoulders of Giants" published in the British Journal of Medical & Surgical Urology (BJMSU, now the Journal of Clinical Urology) in 2012. 

Listen to his interview about making his own instruments


Richard passed away on Saturday 15 September 2020 at the great age of 95. Click here to read his obituary in the Memorial Garden by Prof Chris Chapple and Mr Jonathan Goddard. 

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