In memoriam: Noranna Warner, MD

Noranna B. Warner, MD
Noranna B. Warner, MD

Noranna B. Warner, MD, retired faculty member in the Division of Rheumatology, died May 8, 2023 in Houston, following a brief illness. She was 76.

Dr. Warner was born in Lynwood, Calif., on June 7, 1946. Her family moved from California to Sevierville, Tenn., in 1958. After completing her secondary education at the Sevier County High School, she attended the University of Tennessee – Knoxville where she received a bachelor’s degree in chemistry in 1968 and a doctorate in biochemistry in 1971. Dr. Warner attended medical school at the University of Tennessee in Memphis, receiving her MD in 1975. After internship and residency in Memphis, she undertook a post-doctoral fellowship at the Scripps Institute in La Jolla, Calif., which she completed in 1981.

She joined the McGovern Medical School faculty in 1981 and was recruited by William Arend, MD, who was the chief of rheumatology from 1980-82. She was the lone full-time faculty member in rheumatology when Dr. Arend left and until Frank Arnett, MD, arrived in 1984. She served as clinical director of the division from 2004 until her retirement in January 2015. The Dr. Noranna B. Warner Endowed Chair in the Division of Rheumatology at the McGovern Medical School was established in her honor.

“Dr. Warner taught generations of fellows here at UTH and is in no small part responsible for much of the rheumatologic care in Texas and beyond,” said John Reveille, MD, professor of rheumatology. “Her patient-centered care and focus on the fellows had the fellows over many years call her ‘Mother.’”

Dr. Warner was preceded in death by her parents, Charles Gaston Burridge and Aileen Burchfiel Burridge.

She is survived by her husband, Thomas D. Warner, Bellaire, Texas, and her brother, Charles C. Burridge, Nashville, Tenn.

She will be interred in the Shiloh Cemetery in Pigeon Forge, Tenn. Arrangements are pending. Rather than the traditional floral tributes, Dr. Warner requested that donations be made to the First United Methodist Church in Sevierville, Tenn. or to the charity of one’s choice.