[4] A family friend, Sir Cooper Perry encouraged her to become a doctor but discouraged her from becoming a researcher, saying, 'Don't think of it.

[1][4] A legacy from her godmother of £120 a year meant she could study clinical medicine part-time at University College Hospital and she was admitted MRCS and LRCP in 1933.

In 1936 Pickford was awarded a Beit Memorial Fellowship and in 1939 reported on the antidiuretic effect of injecting acetylcholine into the brain.

[6] Her proposers were David Whitteridge, John Gaddum, Reginald Passmore and Philip Eggleton.

[2] In 2021,a memorial blue plaque was erected by The Physiological Society, in the University of Edinburgh Old Medicine Quad in her honour, the first to a woman, recognising she was a scientist who had 'contributed to the advancement of the discipline through their discoveries, leaving a legacy beyond their lifetime.