Women recipients of the FPM President’s medal

Awarded in 2023

Ruth trained in medicine at the University of Leeds and did her pre-registration house officer jobs and then several years in general medicine in Yorkshire, followed by a brief period as a general practitioner for the British Army of the Rhine in Germany during Gulf War 1.  She has now been in the Pharmaceutical industry for over 30 years, starting her career as a clinical research physician in Wellcome’s clinical pharmacology group with John Posner as the head of department. Ruth was in clinical pharmacology for approximately 15 years and used to say that she’d had three jobs and worked for six different companies, having gone through several acquisitions and mergers. For the last 15 years she’s been in pharmacovigilance, with GSK and PPD and now with Eisai, a mid-sized company headquartered in Japan which specialises in oncology and neurology, where she heads the international pharmacovigilance department.

Back in 2003, Ruths old boss John Posner invited her to join the FPM’s Board of Examiners as the essay paper convener and after that she acted variously as secretary, MCQ paper convener and, in the last three years, Chair of the BoE. During her tenure as chair, the pandemic year 2020 brought the challenge of implementing the exams in pharmaceutical medicine and human pharmacology in an electronic format, so that candidates could sit them online without having to travel to an examination centre. To maintain her licence to practice and be an appraiser for medical revalidation since 2012, conduct appraisals for FPM as well as for her employer companies. She is proud to be a Fellow of the FPM and was awarded Global Fellow in Medicines Development.

Awarded in 2019

Dr Juliet Roberts is an inspirational leader and mentor for the specialty of pharmaceutical medicine. Through her clinical development work in various different roles at Boehringer Ingelheim, she has helped bring innovative new medicines to benefit patients.

Dr Roberts is also passionate about education, training and qualifications for pharmaceutical physicians. She is an educational supervisor, a specialty advisor, and a responsible officer for Revalidation at her company. She has been Chair of the FPM Board of Examiners for six years and Vice-Chair before then. During her tenure as Chair she has worked tirelessly to deliver high quality examination papers for the Diploma in Pharmaceutical Medicine (DPM) exam every year and to continuously improve the examination processes. She has delivered all this in addition to her full-time job by working during weekends, evenings and even holidays.

Dr Roberts has been a great leader of the FPM Board of Examiners, keeping momentum, focusing on quality deliverables and ensuring fair assessments in the exams. She is a tireless champion for Pharmaceutical Medical Specialty Training (PMST) and promotes the DPM as a fair and passable exam. She takes every opportunity to encourage potential trainees and exam candidates to undertake the training and she is also involved with the pilot to include pharmaceutical medicine in the medical undergraduates curriculum at the Brighton and Sussex Medical School. Dr Roberts enthusiasm for the specialty of pharmaceutical medicine knows no limits.

For her professionalism, commitment and sheer hard work to raise the profile of the specialty of Pharmaceutical Medicine for the benefit of improved patient outcomes, wider society and the next generation of pharmaceutical physicians, Dr Juliet Roberts is awarded the Faculty of Pharmaceutical Medicine President’s Medal.