MB ChB Manch 1957, MD 1966, DSc (Hon) 1997; FRCP Lond 1973; DSc (Hon) Salford 1996; DSc (Hon) Lond 2000.
Lord Leslie Turnberg was a prominent gastroenterologist and was the first the University of Manchester professor of medicine to be based at Hope Hospital, Salford. Turnberg was born in Manchester on 22 March 1934 and was educated at Stand Grammar School and the University of Manchester. He held resident appointments at Manchester Northern Hospital, Manchester Jewish Hospital, Ancoats Hospital and MRI. In 1961 Turnberg held medical registrar appointments at University College Hospital London, and MRI before embarking on his lecturing and research career. He was lecturer in the Royal Free Hospital London and research fellow in Dallas, Texas, before returning to Manchester as lecturer in gastroenterology at the University of Manchester in 1968. He was later senior lecturer and from 1973 was appointed first professor of medicine at Hope Hospital and honorary consultant physician to Salford Health Authority. Turnberg was Dean of the Faculty of Medicine at Manchester from 1986 to 1989.
Turnberg was a member of Manchester Medical Society, Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society and the British Society of Gastroenterology, of which he was president in 1999. He was president of the Royal College of Physicians from 1992 to 1997. Turnberg's reputation is reflected in the large number of honorary fellowships awarded to him, which include fellowship of the Royal College of Surgeons and the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. Turnberg retired from his position at Salford in 1997. He was awarded a knighthood in 1994 and was made a peer in 2000. Turnberg is a member of the House of Lords Select Committee on Science and Technology.