In 1985 she obtained one of the first Mental Health Foundation GP Research Training Fellowships through which she completed a PhD on emotional disorders associated with childbirth in a cohort of women in South London, supervised by Professors Michael Shepherd and David Morrell. This cohort was subsequently followed up until the children were 25 years old. During her 11 years in South London, she was a partner (the first woman) at the Lambeth Road Group Practice - the academic practice attached to St Thomas' Hospital. She developed additional research interests in women's health in particular breast cancer screening and more generic interests in primary care mental health. She took up the foundation chair in Primary Health Care in Bristol in 1994, the first woman to be appointed to a substantive chair in medicine in Bristol and built up a world-class department over the next sixteen years.