Dame Clare Marx (pictured left) is to step down as Chair of the General Medical Council (GMC) at the end of July following a diagnosis of pancreatic cancer.

Dame Clare has been Council Chair since the start of 2019 and is the first woman to hold the post since the GMC was established in 1858.

A formal process to select the GMC’s next Chair will take place in due course. In the interim the Chair’s duties will be carried out by Council member Dame Carrie MacEwen (pictured right).

Dame Clare Marx studied medicine at University College London before specialising in Trauma and Orthopaedic surgery. She held consultant and leadership roles first at St Charles and St Mary’s Paddington, and then for 27 years at Ipswich Hospital.

Prior to taking up her role with the GMC she was the first woman President in the history of the British Orthopaedic Association (2008-9) and the Royal College of Surgeons of England (2014-17), and was Chair of the Faculty of Medical Leadership and Management until the end of 2018.

New interim Chair Dame Carrie MacEwen is a consultant ophthalmologist for NHS Tayside and Honorary Professor at the University of Dundee. She served as Chair of the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges until 2020 and is Past-President of the Royal College of Ophthalmologists.