Dr. Turner's Biography

William Barry Turner was born in Montgomery, Alabama, into a military family. As a child he and his family lived in Japan, Sicily, Tennessee, Maine, and Virginia before settling in Brunswick , Georgia, where Turner graduated from high school.

After high school, Turner joined the Army, where he received training as a combat medic and operating room technician. He was then stationed at the 43rd MASH in Korea for 13 months during the Vietnam War. He even assisted in surgery at age 19. His experience in Asia also introduced him to world medicine, in which he has had an avid interest ever since.

After the Army, Dr. Turner resumed his medical education. He received his Bachelor of Science in Nursing from the University of Alabama in Birmingham. He worked as a registered nurse in Alabama and Florida, specializing in emergency and critical care nursing. But after a few years, he became bored with nursing and felt he could do more. He tried his hand at other jobs, including selling x-ray equipment, during which he learned about podiatry.

The variety of podiatry appealed to Turner: "I liked the idea of the type of work they did. It was a little dermatology, a little surgery, some neurology. It had a little of all fields in it," he says. He then attended Barry University School of Podiatric Medicine and received the degree of Doctor of Podiatric Medicine (DPM) in 1991. He did his residency via Cedars Hospital in Miami, and then moved to Royston Georgia and opened his first practice.

In five years, Dr. Turner opened seven part-time offices in the rural counties surrounding Royston. As his podiatry practice evolved, he found himself treating more and more wounds. The study of wound care was also inspired by his grandmother, who had lost both legs because of diabetic ulcers that would not heal.

"I enjoyed and was frustrated with wounds," he says. "I would send my difficult ones to other specialists, only to find that they would simply amputate. Amputation was not what I had wanted. I found I was fighting harder, and referring fewer wounds to other physicians. I found myself doing more and more research aimed at saving limbs and healing wounds."

Dr. Turner became a Certified Wound Specialist (CWS) by the American Academy of Wound Management, and then opened Global Wound Care in 1999.

Today, Dr. Turner lives in Royston with his wife Robin. He has two grown daughters, Gwendalyn, 20, and Cassandra, 18, who is attending nursing school. In his spare time, he enjoys science fiction. "I'm eagerly awaiting the invention of spray-on skin, like they have on Star Trek," he says.

"My life has been exciting, but the last few years have been some of my most exciting and rewarding," says Dr. Turner. "I currently see 600 plus patients a month in a county of 17,000. Wound patients from all over come to my little clinic and we try to reward them with resolving their wounds."