Marjory Warren

Marjory Winsome Warren (28 October 1897 – 5 September 1960) is one of the first geriatricians and considered the mother of modern geriatric medicine.

After her residency at the Isleworth Infirmary from 1926–1935, she took over[dubious – discuss][citation needed] the workhouse next door and formed the West Middlesex County Hospital.

Warren argued for the creation of the specialty of geriatric medicine, specialist units in general hospitals, and medical education focusing on the care of elderly people by doctors with experience in the field.

In 1947, she co-founded the Medical Society for the Care of the Elderly with others including Joseph Harold Sheldon, Trevor Howell in Croydon and Oxford's Lionel Cosin.

While this did not occur in her lifetime (approvals for residential homes were assigned to local government instead), it is now a standard of care in the UK and Australia.

Many of her colleagues did not understand the value of providing care for the largely neglected group of patients, and as a woman, with no further medical qualifications, she often struggled to get her views across.

Geriatricians were referred to as members of ‘a second-rate specialty, looking after third rate patients in fourth-rate facilities’[4] and were met with resistance from general physicians.