Profile: Baroness Murphy

From Clearing to St George’s Boss! 

Baroness Murphy talks to George’s News editor Tamsin Starr about her job at St George’s, University of London, her distinguished career in medicine — and how tricycling in Norfolk helps her get away from it all.

Q: As chair of St George’s council, what is your role here?
A: The council is the ultimate governing body of St George’s, ensuring we get value for money and do what our statutes say we have to. We decide on the strategic direction of the institution — what we don’t do is run the day-to-day business. 

Q: What are our challenges?
A: As we’re vulnerable to our stars being poached by other institutions we have to constantly think how to maintain our excellent reputation and recruit and keep the best staff. We turn out very well-trained doctors from a broad range of ethnic backgrounds who are well suited to the NHS and today’s Britain. That’s something we should be proud of and we do not want to emulate other universities that concentrate on producing research-oriented or specialist doctors. 

Q: What most excites you about your role?
A: Well, it’s always nice to be boss! Like many other people, I came here knowing about St George’s — I remember reading about Jenner and his cowhide at school and thinking “My God, that’s romantic”. I actually applied to St George’s and they didn’t let me in. I applied to all 13 medical schools in London and I got 13 straight rejections. I went to a grammar school where nobody had been to medical school and there was no history of medicine in the family. The first question I remember on the Charing Cross Hospital Medical School application was: “What medical school did your father go to?” At St Mary’s, all they were interested in was what position you played at rugby. I eventually got into Manchester through clearing. They had 100 places and a maximum quota of 20 women.  

Q: Did you encounter a lot of sexism as a medical student?
A: Well, of course once you got there it was fine — they just expected you to behave exactly as the men. It was hard to maintain your femininity, even though you could wear high heels. A friend of mine turned up in a pair one day because it was freezing cold and snowing and the consultant said to her: “You look very smart in those trousers, they are very attractive, but please don’t come on my ward rounds in them again.” And women’s trousers had been around since the 1920s! 

Q: You have made a successful career based on your twin interests in mental health and old age. How did you first become interested in them?
A: It was a Damascus conversion, really. When I was training, one hot summer’s day we went to an old Victorian house at the back of the Manchester Royal Infirmary and the professor of psychiatry sent us to each find one patient to sit down and have a conversation with us. I met this young woman who was my age, from north Manchester, and we sat in the garden talking about her problems — she was hearing voices and music over in her head, classic symptoms of organic temporal lobe epilepsy. Her parents came halfway through and I talked to them about how it had affected the family and that was it. Afterwards I thought: “This is fascinating — and quite different from all the mechanical stuff I’ve been doing.” I signed up straight away for more training in psychotherapy and by the time I qualified I knew I was going to be a psychiatrist. Later I specialised in old-age psychiatry. 

Q: How did you then get interested in research?
A: Shortly after I’d started research, I won a prize for it, from the Royal College of Psychiatrists, so I thought I might make a go of it in academia. I went on to be the first chair at Guy’s, the first woman chair and the first chair of psychiatry in the world. Extraordinary. It was great fun being the only woman in Guy’s academic firmament — they all treated me like I was some fragile piece of china! I love it — who wouldn’t? You can get away with everything! 

Q: You once said raising alcohol taxes would slash the homicide rate…
A: Well, in the days of Hogarth’s Gin Lane, they slapped a massive tax on gin, which had become a profound social problem, and the gin problem promptly came to an end overnight. There’s no doubt that the rate of violence and homicide is connected to alcohol and other drugs. The intake of alcohol is very sensitive to price and availability — today’s 24-hour licensing and shopping have made alcohol extremely cheap and available, so you can get drunk to your heart’s content all hours of the day and night. We are almost encouraging people to drink more with these 24-hour licensing laws. 

Q: Why did you back the ban on smoking in public places?
A: The burden on the NHS through smoking is so huge — one in three people who come into hospital will have a disease that has a direct relationship to smoking — and a very dear friend of mine who stopped smoking 15 years ago died recently of what they call a smoking-related cancer. The ban will harm business, but not much. When I was young no one thought the worse of you for drinking and driving — now all that has changed. Smoking causes so much damage that we need to try to create a culture in which it is similarly unacceptable. 

Q: What do you do to relax?
A: Well, I go cycling in Norfolk with my husband on our tricycle — we always turn heads, especially with me in my helmet, all wrapped up and in a luminous vest top. I’m sure they think “Who is that mad woman?”! We also grow frantoio olives at our place in Lucca [in Tuscany] — we have about 12 acres — producing a lovely peppery yellow olive oil from the first pressing before Christmas, which is so popular even the locals buy it! 

Q: How did you meet your husband (Professor of Theoretical Chemistry at Imperial, Michael Robb)?
A: About 10 years ago when I was studying for a PhD in medical history, my professor, Roy Porter, gave me his ticket to the opening of the Science Museum’s Wellcome wing. I was wondering whether to go, but I did — and I saw this man standing there with a drink in his hand. He said: “I don’t know anyone here, do you?” “No,” I replied, and we started chatting. We’ve now been married for six years. 

Q: Will you ever retire?
A: The day I was going to retire I was rung up by the regional chairman who said: “Would you like to chair a trust I’m setting up?” I thought: “That sounds nice, I can do that.” So for the last 10 years I’ve chaired institutions. It’s something I plan to do for a long time to come.