Professor Helen Leathard

After completing BSc (Hons) Pharmacology at Chelsea College (London) in 1970 and PhD at KCHMS in 1974, I stayed at Kings for postdoctoral research until becoming Lecturer in Pharmacology at CXHMS in 1977. In 1992 I moved to Lancaster in 1992 to teach nurses and other health care professionals as Senior Lecturer, Reader and then Professor of Healing Science & Pharmacology, spending several years also as Director of the Graduate School, developing the research capability of St Martin’s College as a prelude to becoming the University of Cumbria.Having joined the BPS in 1973, I served on the Education Sub-committee, 2001 - 2008 and Clinical Section Committee, 2004 – 2008 before being elected Fellow, organising a symposium on pharmacology education for new prescribers for the Winter 2005 meeting; then inaugurated and chaired the Society’s Prescribing Group and convened a second symposium on education for prescribing at the Winter 2007 meeting.I retired from academia in 2010 and became a p/t priest in the Church of England, developing a scholarly interest in comparing biomedical and spiritual approaches to health and healing.