Merry Christmas!
As the festive period approaches and the year draws to a close, we want to take the opportunity to thank all our staff for their continued support towards the Medical School. Our ongoing success is largely down to the hard work and dedication of our staff, so thank you all again.
We hope that you all have a restful festive break and we look forward to welcoming everyone back in 2018!
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Top Stories
Exeter Clinical Trials Unit Nationally Registered
We're delighted to announce that the Exeter Clinical Trials Unit has been awarded national registration by the UK Clinical Research Collaboration. To register, units had to demonstrate they were capable of centrally coordinating multi-centre clinical trials and other well-designed studies. The registration marks an important milestone in the Unit’s progress, and will boost the future of healthcare research in Exeter. Read more here.
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Academy of Nursing Accreditation
We're pleased to announce that the Academy of Nursing has been granted Approved Education Institution (AEI) status by the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC). Full approval is subject to the Academy meeting four conditions by the end of January.
Pleasingly, we also received three commendations from the reviewer in which he described how impressed he was with the level of evidence presented for institutional commitment to the Academy, our Patient and Public Involvement strategy, and our partnership working between University and NHS clinical colleagues. We're grateful for everybody's help in prioritising this work.
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Medical School Sculpture
The Medical School foyer has welcomed a new addition: a 7ft sculpture made entirely from cardboard. The sculpture was created by local artist James Lake, with the help of students and staff, who added writings and drawings. The sculpture contains elements that represent the Medical School’s variety of interdependent disciplines, and will encourage a shared sense of purpose and enjoyment for staff, students and visitors to the Medical School. Read more here.
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Prizes and Awards Evening 2017
The fourth annual Prizes & Awards Evening was held at the Eden Project on Wednesday 29th November. Staff and students gathered to celebrate the award-winners, who included students from the Medicine, Medical Sciences and Medical Imaging programmes, as well as inspirational staff. You can read more here.
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Staff News
Congratulations
Congratulations to:
Professor Andrew Hattersley, Professor Tim Frayling and Dr Michael Weedon, who are among the "most influential scientific minds", according to a new ranking by Clarivate. They are three of 12 scientists from the University to be featured on the list, which names the most highly cited researchers worldwide. You can read more here.
Dr Sharon Savage, who working with Professor Adam Zeman and the TIME project team, has been awarded the Alwyn Lishman Prize of the British Neuropsychiatry Association for her paper: "Memory over TIME: Long-term follow-up of accelerated long-term forgetting and autobiographical memory in Transient Epileptic Amnesia." Dr Savage also won the Young Investigator Award of the World Congress of Neurology for her paper “Long-term prognosis of Transient Epileptic Amnesia: evidence from the
TIME project”.
Dr Iain Lang, who was appointed in July as the Medical School’s Associate Dean (International & Development). The ADID role leads on the College’s global strategy, international partnerships, alumni relations and philanthropy. If you would like to get in touch about any aspects of internationalisation, please get in touch with Iain, or the Global Partnerships Business Partner, Rachel Jones.
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Grant Awards
Congratulations to:
Dr Linda Long and Professor Rod Taylor, of ESMI, who have received a £5,000 NIHR Cochrane Incentive Award in order to conduct a review on Exeter-based cardiac rehabilitation for patients with stable angina. This is the second NIHR Cochrane incentive award the group has been awarded.
PenCLAHRC's Evidence Synthesis Team, who have received funding from the NIHR for two evidence synthesis projects which will start in the New Year. The NIHR Health Services and Delivery Research Programme awarded £320,500 to Professor Jo Thompson-Coon and her team for an 18-month project to understand how to improve the experience of care for people with dementia in hospital, their families, and the staff that care for them. The NIHR Research for Patient Benefit Programme awarded
£132,500 to Dr Rebecca Whear and her team for a 12-month project to explore the qualitative and quantitative evidence of parent-to-parent support interventions of for parents of babies cared for in neonatal units.
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New Roles
Congratulations to the following on their new roles:
Dr Alje Van Hoorn - Academic Clinical Fellow
Dr Christopher Kelsall - Postdoctoral Research Associate
Dr Claire Eatock - Project Manager
Dr Daniel Cox - Postdoctoral Research Fellow
Dr Daniele Carrieri - Postdoctoral Research Fellow
Dr David Whitfield - Postdoctoral Research Fellow
Dr Elizabeth Bowler - Postdoctoral Research Associate
Dr Emma Pitchforth - Senior Research Fellow / Senior Lecturer
Dr Krisztina Timko - Postdoctoral Research Fellow
Dr Laith Al-mukhtar - Clinical Teaching Fellow
Dr Pouria Akhbari - Postdoctoral Research Associate
Dr Raluca Topciu - Postdoctoral Research Associate
Miss Rebekah Hall - Graduate Trainee Assistant
Miss Samantha Febrey - Graduate Research Assistant
Mr Matthew Johnson - Associate Research Fellow
Ms Alison Marchbank - Senior Lecturer
Ms Cheryl Paterson - Postdoctoral Research Assosiate
Ms Robyn Bartley - Graduate Research Assistant
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Employee Engagement Survey 2016 update
The results of the 2016 Employee Engagement Survey have been announced, with action planning taking place across the University. University-wide themes have been identified which you can read more about here.
Within the Medical School, one of our priorities is improving internal communications around the way we work with our Professional Services; especially where we are experiencing significant innovation and change. In each newsletter this year we will share information on topics such as the new Research Services ‘health cluster’, the impact of changes within the Doctoral College, our Impact, Innovation and Business Directorate, and transformation within IT and Education Student Services. If there is a specific Service you’d like to read more about here, then please contact Michelle Garrett-Martin or the UEMS Professional Services team.
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QS Survey Coming Soon
The annual QS Survey is coming up, which is used to produce one of the most influential international rankings of universities. It is an important way for the University and the Medical School to increase our international reputation. Part of the QS ranking system involves asking academics for their opinions about other institutions, which can be difficult for us to excel in as a small and growing Medical School. It would be appreciated if you could start to think about international contacts who are favourably disposed to Exeter and to respond when the email comes around. We’ll be in touch soon with a request for international contacts and how to select the most appropriate ones!
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Charity Haircut
Dr Rachel Palfrey, a Senior Lecturer in Medical Imaging, has raised almost £2500 for Little Princess Trust by having 30cm of her hair cut off. Rachel was diagnosed with ovarian cancer in October, and is undergoing chemotherapy. We wish Rachel all the best with her treatment. To read more or to donate to Rachel's page, click here.
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Street Food Events
From January 2018, regular dates for Street Food events taking place on St Luke's will be added to the Eat and Shop webpages.
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Additional Staff Life Activities
There will now be the additional Staff Life activities which include:
Monday 12:00-13:00 Tai Chi, Dance Studio
Tuesday 12:00-13:00 Pilates, Dance Studio
Thursday 12:00-13:00 LBT, Dance Studio
Thursday 12:00-13:00 Staff Kick About Football, Sports Hall
25% off Fitness Classes in October (excluding Floatfit and Indoor Cycling)
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Education news
Student Newsletter
We are proud to announce the start of a new monthly Medical Student Newletter for undergraduate Medicine, Medical Sciences and Medical Imaging students. The newsletter will highlight the successes of our students, as well as exciting events and opportunities happening in the Medical School.
If you have any discipline specific news that you would like to share with your cohort in future editions, please email Eleanour Le Couteur Bisson (Careers Information and Student Engagement Assistant).
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Equality and Diversity update
Equality & Diversity Mandatory Training
A reminder that it is mandatory for all staff to complete their online Equality and Diversity training. It is a short course, and is necessary in order for staff to complete their probationary year. The course can be accessed from LearnUpon.
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Staff Training
Twitter Training
Thanks to everyone who attended our Twitter for Beginners and Twitter for Improvers workshops. We hope they were valuable to you. If you attended, please do fill in our surveys so we can continue to improve the training sessions. Click here for the Beginners survey, and here for the Improvers survey.
The Medical School Twitter account (@ExeterMed) has been compiling a list of Medical School academics. The list is a work in progress, so if you know of anybody who should be on the list and isn't, please email Izzy White.
The Medical School's Communications and Marketing team has put together a resource around Twitter, which you can access here. It contains tips and information for users of any level.
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UEMS Infrastructure News
ePDR Is Coming
Pilots for the ePDR project are now complete, and the team are working hard to ensure that it is ready for the next PDR cycle in Spring. The ePDR system will facilitate good quality discussions about performance and development across the entire year. It will provide managers and individuals with a snapshot of current metrics (academic staff), as well as supporting the alignment of targets and goals to college, service and university strategic plans. The ePDR system will also allow colleagues to seek feedback from more than one person as part of their PDR. Training for managers will be launched in January, to help you navigate the ePDR system and conduct PDRs with your direct reportees - more details will be made available shortly. If you have any questions, please email epdr@exeter.ac.uk.
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Increasing Car Parking Spaces
The Estates Services team are planning to create 20 extra spaces in the Magdalen Road car park over the coming weeks. This will involve the demolition of some of the outbuildings in the car park to allow for this. Work is scheduled to start on Thursday 14th December, and so please be aware that some areas may be cordoned off temporarily to allow the safe movement of vehicles and machinery related to the works. We hope to maintain as many of the current spaces as possible during these works but some may need to be taken out of service due to the safety of people on site. We would appreciate your cooperation whilst these works are being carried out. Please be aware that when these works are complete, all spaces will be accessible from the main entrance to the car park, and that the side gate situated in College Avenue will be closed.
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Cross Keys Development
The proposed redevelopment of Cross Keys is currently gaining momentum, with a planned completion date of summer 2018. A consultancy firm is in the process of designing the new space, taking into account the feedback which has been provided by campus users in the past, particularly from the focus groups held last summer. There will be some further sessions next year to help the catering team finalise their menu offers and these will be advertised closer to the time.
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UEMS Christmas Party
Thu 21 December, 16.00-18.00
Cross-Keys bar
Please RSVP to uems-pvc@exeter.ac.uk by 17.00, Wed 13th December.
Wellcome Centre for the Cultures and Environments of Health Digital Storytelling Workshop
Sat 6 January, 13.00-16.00
Exploration Lab 2, The Forum, Streatham Campus
APEx Seminar: "It's the sustainability, stupid!" - why health and social care need a new snowclone to survive
Wed 10 January, 13.00-14.00
JS07, Smeall Building, St Luke’s Campus (with video conferencing to F083 Knowledge Spa)
APEx Starfield Lecture: Evidence, advocacy and resourcing – can global general practice meet the challenge of universal health coverage?
Thu 18 January, 18.30-20.00
G18, St Luke's Campus
APEx Seminar: Community-based social innovations for healthy ageing: evidence from middle income countries
Wed 21 February, 13.00-14.00
JS07, Smeall Building, St Luke’s Campus (with video conferencing to F083 Knowledge Spa)
Please submit entries for this events column to uemsevents@exeter.ac.uk. Deadline is at the bottom of the newsletter.
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