Month: November 2018

Opportunities from the Clinical Academic Training Office (CATO)

Researcher Development Course

This course, taught in two modules, provides an excellent grounding of the critical underpinning skills required to perform high-quality research.

  • Course dates: Module 1: 11 – 12 March 2019 / Module 2: 13 – 14 June 2019 at Imperial College London, South Kensington Campus
  • Target audience: designed specifically for healthcare professionals outside of medicine

Further Course information

There are a limited number of FREE bursary places available for Imperial College London staff in healthcare professions outside of medicine to cover the course fee. Contact the CATO Team for further bursary details.

 

CATO Masterclass

Revolutions in public health research and how to access UK Biobank data: An update for all Clinical Academics

  • Course date: The next Imperial CATO masterclass is on January 24 2019, 18:00hrs, at the Royal Marsden Hospital (Julian Bloom Lecture Theatre).
  • Course content: The focus will be on how clinical academics might use the increasing wealth of population and NHS data (including UK Biobank) in research studies, or work with epidemiologists and others in exploring research questions using their data and skills.
  • Target audience: This will be particular interest to those of you who are not public health researchers to learn about how you could potentially work with such academics, and learn what they are currently doing, and how to access data such as UK Biobank.
  • Speakers: this will include Dr Ioanna Tzoulaki, Reader in Epidemiology, who uses UK Biobank data to explore genetic associations of inflammatory biomarkers (amongst others).

Please complete the online form to book your place.

Update from the MRC London Institute of Medical Sciences (LMS)

Visualisation of new building. Image credit: Hawkins\Brown
Visualisation of new building. Image credit: Hawkins\Brown

New home for the LMS

In 2017 the Medical Research Council and Imperial College London announced a joint project to build a new home for the MRC London Institute of Medical Sciences (LMS) on the former Cyclotron site. The location of the LMS at the Hammersmith Hospital campus has supported the delivery of multidisciplinary research at the interface of medicine and basic science. The new building will bring the Institute together in a state-of-the-art collaborative research environment with specialist research facilities.

This month the project reached a major milestone with the submission of planning permission to the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham. The application will be live on the Council portal in a week’s time, with a planning decision expected in March 2019.

Alongside the development of the planning application, the procurement of the contractor for the project has begun. While the team await the planning decision the project has now moved into RIBA stage 4, the technical design stage. Our design team of Hawkins\BrownBuro Happold and Abell Nepp are continuing to work with the LMS and our project team to develop these plans over the coming months. (more…)

Faculty of Medicine’s new Attributes and Aspirations Module – what is it?

Dallas Alexandrou, project manager for the Attributes and Aspirations module explains this new module:

In parallel to the ongoing curriculum review, the Faculty of Medicine postgraduate team has identified the need to develop high-quality tools and activities to help our Master’s students take ownership of their professional futures and develop their graduate attributes beyond the mastery of their chosen discipline.

As a result, the proposed Attributes and Aspirations (AA) module has been approved by the College Pedagogy Transformation Committee and is currently being developed. It will use interactive pedagogical activities based on a blended, inclusive, innovative and active approach to supporting our students.

Critical to the development of the AA module is that it meets both students’ and employers’ needs. Research has been undertaken to identify the relevant topics and skills our students are keen to develop, together with the skills and attributes identified by employers as being critical graduate skills for current and future employment. Areas including effective career guidance, practice of selection processes and skills such as adaptability, communication, critical thinking, problem solving and effective team work have been identified as priorities.

Subject to the College’s standard approval mechanisms, a pilot delivery of the AA module will commence from Autumn Term 2019-20 in selected Faculty of Medicine MSc/MRes programmes. AA will be non-credit bearing and elective, with much of the delivery online to avoid interfering with students’ timetabled teaching and lab sessions.  Following evaluation of the pilot, there is an ambition to offer the module to students from all FoM postgraduate programmes and to students from Faculties across the College. (more…)

From the Vice Dean (Education): Supporting education in our Faculty

Martin Lupton
My appointment as Vice Dean (Education) was announced last month, and it is a great privilege to be asked to lead our community of creative and inspiring students and education staff. Since the Dean asked me to take on this role, I have been thinking about how I can best support those in the Faculty of Medicine involved in education.

We are in a time of great change and opportunity. As you know, we are currently involved in a comprehensive undergraduate and postgraduate curriculum review. We are also about to make a significant investment in our pedagogy and digital education capacity (initially funded through the Learning and Teaching Strategy). Furthermore, for the first time, there is a clear path to academic promotion based on a person’s scholarly and educational activity.

It is obvious that I cannot manage all this change alone. I propose two things: (more…)

Monthly update from the Institute of Global Health Innovation

Joe Biden at Imperial, October 2018

A roundup of news, events and blog posts

Joe Biden delivers inaugural cancer research lecture at Imperial

IGHI was honoured to welcome the 47th Vice President of the United States Joe Biden, who delivered the inaugural lecture of the Imperial Cancer Research UK (CRUK) Centre.

Global Health Forum: Cancer technologies 

IGHI’s Global Health Forum returned on 11 October for the new academic year tackling cancer technologies.

IGHI Podcast: The Progress of Cancer Technologies

Ahead of October’s Global Health Forum, IGHI spoke to Abellona U to discuss how far we’ve come in cancer technologies, their translatability to lower and middle income countries and her research on hepatocellular carcinoma.

A Marginal Call in Breast Cancer

Mr Daniel Leff looks at the major challenge in margin problems when it comes to breast-conserving surgery for Breast Cancer Awareness month. (more…)