Professor Allan Templeton
Born in Glasgow, he moved to Aberdeen when he was a year old. His father was a chiropodist who established the Aberdeen Foot Hospital and Templeton was educated at Aberdeen Grammar School. He entered Aberdeen University Medical School at the age of just 16 years and it was during his elective year as an undergraduate which he spent in Kenya as part of a student exchange programme, that he became interested in the specialty of obstetrics and gynaecology.
Templeton graduated in 1969 and obtained MD with honours from Aberdeen University in 1981. He moved to Edinburgh 1975 to work with Professor Melville Kerr Brady was introduced into the field of infertility and after working 10 years in Edinburgh he returned to Aberdeen in 1985 as the University Regius Professor of Obstetrics and Gynaecology. He assembled a multidisciplinary team to pioneer many techniques in assisted conception and was considered a pioneer in the field of infertility, fertility control and reproductive health. Out of Aberdeen, he adopted the role of honorary secretary at the Royal College of Gynaecologists and Obstetricians for seven years before becoming President of the College (2004-2007). He had founded the Aberdeen Fertility Centre in 1985 to provide fertility services within the North East of Scotland. The centre initially provided donor insemination treatment and the first baby was born in 1986. Several innovative research projects led to the creation of an in-vitro fertilisation (IVF) service in 1988, leading to the first IVF baby being born in 1989.
He was awarded a CBE in 2008 for services to medicine.
In addition to his clinical activities, he went on to work with the Academy of the Medical Royal Colleges, a fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences (2002), the Postgraduate Medical Education and Training Board and the Royal College of Midwives.
Biography prepared from the nomination made to the University of Aberdeen 525 Alumni project.