Elizabeth Turner was the eldest daughter of Henry and Irene Turner. She had two sisters; Caroline Nancy Cats, who predeceased her and Dame Phyllis Frost, well known for her many community involvements including prison reform and the Keep Australia Beautiful campaign.

She was educated at St Duthus School and Presbyterian Ladies’ College, Melbourne. Following matriculation, she began medical studies at the University of Melbourne where she graduated Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery in 1940. She was one of only 10 female students graduating in medicine at that time.

She was Junior Medical Resident Officer (1941) and Senior Medical Resident Officer (1943-44) at Royal Children’s Hospital, Melbourne and
Medical Superintendent there from 1944-46, the only female to have held this appointment. Subsequently she was appointed Physician to Out Patients, Physician to In Patients, Physician - Head of Unit and Chairman of Senior Medical Staff. She was an enthusiastic member of the Alumni Association and President during the years 1995-96.

Elizabeth Turner's professional life extended well beyond the Royal Children's Hospital. She played a significant role in the following hospitals and medical organisations: Queen Victoria Hospital, University of Melbourne Faculty of Medicine, Victorian Medical Women's Society, Paediatric Society of Victoria and the Thalassaemic Society of Victoria. She was for a time President of Soroptomist International of Melbourne.

She was one of the first people in Australia to use penicillin in paediatrics when she obtained supplies of the drug to cure a young boy with overwhelming osteomyelitis. She personally obtained the penicillin from the US Army Medical Corps stationed in Melbourne at the time. She obtained the degree MD for her thesis entitled Meningitis in Infancy and Childhood. She was also one of the first paediatricians in Australia to perform an exchange transfusion in a new born with severe jaundice, the result of Rh incompatibility. She described a syndrome in an infant due to emotional stress in pregnancy. She described the effects of alcohol on the foetus in pregnancy in 1962, ten years before the description by others of Fetal Alcohol Syndrome. She described the first case of Turner's Syndrome (not named after her) in Australia.

Apart from medicine, Elizabeth Turner had many other interests. She published articles on botanical and geological subjects and on aspects of conservation. In all, she was the author of more than forty medical and other scientific papers published in Australian and international journals. Her status within the community was recognised when she was awarded the degree LLD (Honoris Causa) by the University of Melbourne in 1983 and the honour Officer of the Order of Australia (AO) in 1989.

She was an avid traveller and her travels included a canoe trip up the Amazon River. She was an accomplished musician and a great supporter of the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra. She painted both in watercolours and in oils. She had a particular interest in the indigenous population and for a time lived with a group at the mouth of the Archer River.

There can be few individuals who have had the dedication and drive for the betterment of children in particular and for society in general as Elizabeth Kathleen Turner.