Professor Marion McMurdo at the University of Dundee has won a national five yearly award for her work to improve quality of life for the elderly.
Tenovus Scotland has selected Marion McMurdo for their prestigious Lady Illingworth award 2001. Marion is head of ageing and health in the department of medicine at the University of Dundee and consultant in medicine for the elderly with the Tayside Primary Care NHS Trust. The award is made every five years to a UK medic who has made a significant contribution to improving life for the elderly.
Marion's work is focussed on intervening to postpone or prevent the onset of disability in later life. She has demonstrated that old people's muscles can be trained and strengthened contrary to popular belief that muscle strength is lost in old age. She has extended the scope of exercise research to include frail elderly people and those in institutional care proving that exercise can improve functional capacity, independence and quality of life for older people.
These research findings have been translated into practice in collaboration with Dorothy Dobson, recently retired assistant director of sport and exercise at the University of Dundee. Together, the pair established 65 exercise classes for the over 60s throughout the UK and have ploughed profits back into ageing research. Marion's free public lectures on healthy ageing have been a run away success over the years with crowds of 450-500 people at lectures in Edinburgh, Dundee and Perth.
Professor McMurdo will be presented with a cheque for £5,000 and a memento at the Royal College of Physicians & Surgeons dinner on Monday 3 December in Glasgow. "It is a great honour to receive this award. It is recognition of our committed team of researchers in ageing and health in the medical school at the University of Dundee and also of the superb support which I have received over many years from colleagues in the Tayside Primary Care NHS Trust."
Professor David Levison, Dean of the Faculty of Medicine, Dentistry and Nursing welcomed the award saying: "Professor McMurdo's unique and positive approach to old age is epitomised by her decision to name her department Ageing and Health as opposed to Geriatric medicine. All of us in the medical school are delighted to see Marion's work recognised nationally through this award."
Marion McMurdo attended Marr college in Troon and went on to graduate in medicine from the University of Dundee in 1980. After a period of general training she worked in clinical pharmacology as Deputy Medical Director of Drug Development (Scotland) Limited, before choosing to specialise in medicine for the elderly. She was appointed to the University of Dundee's newly created Chair of Ageing and Health in 1997.
Professor McMurdo has served on the research committees of the Chief Scientist's Office since 1991, formerly as Vice-Chairman of the Disability and Continuing Health Care Committee, and latterly as a member of the Biomedical and Therapeutics Committee.
She is a co-founder and director of Dorothy Dobson Developments Limited - a University of Dundee Limited Company which runs a network of over-60s exercise classes throughout the United Kingdom./ENDS
Contact Professor Marion McMurdo 01382 632436