Medicine and Surgery

Since the establishment of our Medical School in 1834, we have been undertaking research into human health and disease and applying our findings to improve patient care. Our multidisciplinary research teams bring together relevant professionals and clinicians and research scientists, often working with engineers, geographers, sociologists and economists.

They apply their combined knowledge and skills to address some of the key twenty-first century health challenges in the areas of ageing, cancer, stem cell biology, genetics, drug development, neuroscience and the societal aspects of health care. The findings from their research are then translated to the health care setting through Newcastle Biomedicine, a unique partnership between Newcastle University, the Newcastle Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and other NHS hospitals and academic institutions in the North East of England.

Research degree students contribute to our work and we regularly advertise funded MRes/PhD and PhD projects. These projects help to address some of the key health challenges outlined above and draw on our clinical specialities, which are: anaesthesia; care of the elderly; children’s services; critical care; dermatology; diabetes; ENT (ear, nose and throat); liver; musculoskeletal disease; oncology; ophthalmology; neuroscience; primary care; psychiatry; renal medicine/ urology; reproductive medicine; and respiratory and cardiac medicine. Each student is based in one of our research institutes and has a dedicated supervisory team. This team typically includes a senior scientist and an academic clinician who treats patients as well as having research expertise. This ensures that the potential impact your work can have on improving clinical care is kept at the forefront of your research.

Our expertise in conducting clinical research underpins the part-time MClinRes programme, which is for people who are currently working in clinical research or want to enter this field. It offers three separate awards (PGCert, PGDip and MClinRes) and two study options. The attendance pathway involves selected teaching days on campus supported by self-directed study. The e-learning pathway is a distance learning option that uses online materials in a virtual learning environment. The programme has been developed in partnership with Newcastle upon Tyne Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and all of the modules are based on the practical demands of clinical research, covering key areas such as ethics, writing research proposals, research study design, data interpretation and running clinical trials. The PGCert Minimal Access Surgery covers the principles of laparoscopic surgery and enables you to develop your surgical technique through virtual reality simulation and fresh cadaveric training at the Newcastle Surgical Training Centre.

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