Tooke graduated in Medicine from St John's College, Oxford in 1974 and went on to become a Wellcome Trust Senior Lecturer in Medicine and Physiology and Honorary Consultant Physician at Charing Cross and Westminster Medical School before moving to the Postgraduate Medical School of the University of Exeter in 1987.
In June 2009 it was announced that Tooke would be taking up the position of Vice Provost (Health), Head of the School of Life & Medical Sciences and Head of the Medical School at University College London [REF].