Sally Davies

Dame Sally Claire Davies (born 24 November 1949) is a British physician. She was the Chief Medical Officer (United Kingdom) from 2010 to 2019 and Chief Scientific Adviser at the Department of Health from 2004 to 2016. She worked as a clinician specialising in the treatment of diseases of the blood and bone marrow. She is now Master of Trinity College, Cambridge, appointed on 8 February 2019, with effect from 8 October 2019. She is one of the founders of the National Institute for Health and Care Research. Early life and education Davies was born on 24 November 1949 in Birmingham, England. Her father John Gordon Davies was an Anglican priest and theologian, and her mother Emily Mary Tordoff was a scientist: they both became academics at the University of Birmingham. She failed her eleven-plus exam but was nevertheless able to study at the private Edgbaston High School for Girls in Birmingham, where she excelled on the viola. Davies studied medicine at Manchester Medical School at the University of Manchester where she graduated with a Bachelor of Medicine, Bachelor of Surgery (MB ChB) degree in 1972 and later obtained a Master of Science (MSc) degree from the University of London. Career and research Davies described her early years in clinical practice as "brutalising" and had a four-year break from medicine as a "diplomat's wife" in Madrid, before returning to medical training at the end of the 1970s.