Education report from Associate Dean, Professor Christopher Stephens
Our new students have completed semester one, and their assessments, and we are now well into the second semester and firmly settled in. Our recruitment and selection team is also busy selecting applicants to start in October 2015.
The Recruitment and Admissions Committee last year approved an increase in our academic standards and introduced selection based on an interview and group work, so our application numbers have dropped significantly, but there are still over applicants. I would like to particularly thank Joanne Honey and Karen Dawkins from the Faculty Admission and Recruitment team for making this all happen.
We also plan to change our non-academic criteria for medicine so in future applicants must be able to show that they:
1. are self -motivated and resilient
2. have reflected on, and learnt from, life experiences (this may include work experience, paid employment and personal experiences, both in and outside health and social care settings)
3. can communicate effectively
4. are able to interact successfully with others
5. can demonstrate an understanding of the values of the NHS constitution
Thanks to Dr Clare Polack who led the working group on this.
Dr Nicola Englyst is setting up a new Masters programme around Diabetes Mellitus which will start in October. This will complement the Masters’ in Allergy and in Public Health, which will now have three pathways: nutrition, management and intelligence.
At the end of November last year there was a celebration of the 10th Anniversary of BM4. It was a good day with a great dinner at Saints’ St Mary’s stadium. I can still remember going to the HEFCE offices in Centre Point in London in 2001 with Howard Newby, who was then the Vice Chancellor, to pitch for the funding to increase medical student numbers, and being quizzed by the Chief Medical officer and head of HEFCE!
It was also a huge pleasure to introduce the 2014 Medics Revue - Sherdoc in December. It was the 41st anniversary of the first Medics Review – a great achievement – and was in aid of two charities: Two Saints, a local charity supporting the homeless; and Bowel Cancer UK. The production company had again put in a huge amount of time and effort to make the show funny, creative and visually impressive. They are a talented team of directors, producers, script writers, costume designers, musicians, performers and those who work front-of-house and behind-the-scenes.
There has also been a huge amount of work across the University in preparing for the higher education review by the Quality Assurance Agency (QAA), which took place in the first week of February. The meetings with staff and students went well and initial feedback is positive. Thank you to all the staff and students who took part. I would particularly like to thank Susan Ponsford, Faculty Academic Registrar; Frances Nyland; and Helen Smith from the Faculty Curriculum Quality and Standards team.
Susan is being promoted to become the FAR of the huge Faculty of Social and Human Sciences having led the team in Medicine following University restructuring. We will miss her. I am very pleased that Frances Nyland has been appointed to take on the Faculty Academic Registrar role in Medicine. Frances has a lot of experience in the Faculty of Medicine and has recently been the team leader of the placements and quality team. Congratulations to Frances.
