Dr. Linda Turner

Turner joins medical practice

Delaware native Dr. Linda Turner has found a new home just down the mountain and a new job at the Blue Ridge Medical Office here in Sparta.

Not sure what she wanted to do just out of high school, she joined the Navy, which took her to different places including a tour in Japan. It was during that time that she dreamed of going into the medical field.

"When I left the Navy after seven years and went back to school, I was going to do my premed studies and ended up hearing a lecture from a wildlife researcher which changed my life. I was invited to go to East Africa to work as a research assistant on a wild chimpanzee study and ended up doing a doctorate in chimpanzee ecology. I studied...(the) habitat of the wild chimpanzees in Tanzania. I looked at the way people were living...the site where we were doing the research; there was a small, isolated village that worked to support the project. Every day after I got back from the forest, I'd find crowds of people waiting in the yard at my house asking for medical care."

While helping those in need of care, Turner continued her studies toward a graduate degree. "My professor had made a big investment in me. I had actually gone to Japan...I had gotten a full scholarship from the Japanese government to do my graduate work. So I was in the middle of this degree...I finished my data collection, I finished my analysis, I wrote out my thesis...then we relocated back to the United States from Japan."