Tribute to Professor Elizabeth Murray

17 April 2023

With great sadness, we announce the death of Professor Elizabeth Murray on 7 April 2023.

Head and shoulder photograph of Professor Elizabeth Murray

Elizabeth retired on the grounds of ill health in the summer of 2022. Elizabeth was a GP and will be remembered for her innovations initially in medical education and subsequently for her international reputation in eHealth and the development of digital interventions aiming to find practical solutions to address a range of health problems.

Elizabeth originally studied at St Hilda’s College Oxford and after various clinical appointments took up a position as a job share principal in General Practice in 1991 alongside her role as a clinical lecturer at UCL in the then-named Department of Primary Care and Population Sciences. She became Professor of eHealth and Primary Care in 2013.

She had a strong interest in medical education, developing and evaluating an innovative course teaching general internal medicine to first year clinical students. This was one of the first of such courses, and her work determining the feasibility, acceptability and effects of such teaching laid the empirical foundation for the adoption of community-based teaching of a wide range of subjects including general internal medicine, paediatrics, women's health, psychiatry and care of the older person in large numbers of medical schools.

Elizabeth had a particular talent for identifying opportunities for innovation and in the 1990s developed an interest in digital health, undertaking two randomised controlled trials on the effects of computerised decision aids on patients’ choices for Hormone Replacement Therapy and Benign Prostatic Hypertrophy. In 2001 she was awarded a Harkness Fellowship in Health Care Policy from the Commonwealth Fund, spending a year at the University of California San Francisco studying the effects of the internet on the doctor-patient relationship. This led to a Department of Health Career Scientist Award (2002-2007) to develop her work in digital health. Elizabeth set up the UCL eHealth Unit in 2003, which quickly grew to be one of the foremost eHealth units internationally. Based on her innovative work in digital health, for the last 10 years Elizabeth held a Visiting Fellowship at the Department of General Practice in the University of Melbourne, Australia, making annual trips to work alongside key members of the Department.

Prior to the current trend for ‘team science’, Elizabeth understood that strong, robust research is built on multi-disciplinary expertise, including commercial expertise. She was also passionate about the involvement of patients and the public in research, including representatives as part of her teams long before this became mainstream practice. The team she built researched how to deliver non-pharmaceutical interventions, such as physiotherapy, psychological therapies and disease management, through online programmes and apps across a range of conditions such as diabetes, sexual health, knee rehabilitation and Tourette’s syndrome.

Elizabeth’s tenacity and determination led to the development of a web-based self-management programme for people with Type 2 diabetes (HeLP-Diabetes) being licensed by NHS England for national rollout. This was the first digital intervention taken up by NHS England. At the time of her death, she was working on a digitally enabled, remote, supported rehabilitation for people with Long Covid (Living With Covid Recovery). She also delivered teaching and supervision in the days before her death.

Overall, throughout her career Elizabeth sought to make a difference and was driven by an ambition to see robustly conducted research and evidence-based educational practice implemented to make a difference to the lives of patients and medical staff.

Her commitment to the institutional life of UCL was demonstrated by her term as Head of Research Department of Primary Care and Population Health from 2015-2018.

Elizabeth was passionate about supporting PhD and early career researchers both professionally and personally. The Research Department of Primary Care and Population Health will hold a memorial event in Autumn 2023 and as part of this event will launch a postgraduate fellowship in her name.

Elizabeth will be sorely missed both personally and professionally by those in the eHealth Unit, UCL and beyond.

The celebration of Elizabeth’s remarkable life will be on 5th May at the Powdermills Hotel near Battle, East Sussex. There will be a short service starting at 11.30am, followed by an informal gathering to eat, drink, talk, reminisce, and generally celebrate Elizabeth: her life, her adventures and her achievements. People are welcome to join one or both (details in the link below).

Tribute to Professor Elizabeth Murray

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