Dr Mary McCarthy was born and bred in Stoke on Trent. She attended St Bartholomew’s Medical School, London and qualified in 1981. She then returned Staffordshire to work in what is known today as the University Hospital North Midlands, Royal Stoke Hospital, where she worked for 4 years to do her General Practitioner training. Thereafter she joined the Mayfield GP Surgery in Trentham Road, in Longton. She became a senior partner in 1990 and continued to work at the surgery full time, until her retirement in 2022.

In April 2022 Mary applied to join the Medical Institute and shortly after was elected to Council.