Professor Maggie Shepherd is an Honorary Clinical Professor at the University of Exeter

Diabetes nursing professor chosen for global celebration of women in healthcare

Diabetes nursing professor Maggie Shepherd is one of just four UK nurses and midwives to be included among the Women in Global Health’s 100+ Outstanding Women Nurses and Midwives. 

To mark the 2020 Year of the Nurse and Midwife, Maggie has been selected by Women in Global Health, an organisation whose goal is to promote gender equality in global health leadership.

Working in partnership with the World Health Organisation, the United Nations Population Fund, the International Confederation of Midwives, and Nursing Now, the organisations were looking for notable nurses and midwives doing extraordinary work in their field and communities across the world.   

Professor Shepherd, Honorary Clinical Professor at the University of Exeter, was singled out for her work which combines research, clinical care and education in monogenic diabetes to improve patients’ lives, in a partnership between the university and the Royal Devon & Exeter NHS Trust.

The website highlighting the accolade highlights how Maggie’s work transforms the lives of people who are misdiagnosed with the incorrect form of diabetes, ensuring they have the correct and most effective treatment, in many cases enabling patients to transfer from insulin injections to tablets. She leads international educational initiatives to ensure the translation of genetic findings into clinical care, the award winning Genetic Diabetes Nurse project and is a NIHR70@70 senior nurse research leader.

Maggie said: “I’m absolutely delighted to have my work recognised in this way and to be part of a campaign to promote women in leadership positions. There are so many brilliant and talented nurses and midwives included and I am honoured to be one of them. I hope this campaign will inspire other nurses and midwives to become future health leaders.”

Find out more about Maggie’s work at the website: https://www.diabetesgenes.org

Date: 4 January 2021