Tomorrow's medical researchers to be nurtured in Manchester
March 2006
The School of Medicine has been granted funding for eleven new Department of Health (DH) Academic Clinical Fellowships (ACFs), as part of a flagship scheme to train the medical researchers of the future.
A report for the DH published last October stated that the country’s future health and wellbeing depended on providing flexible training programmes, to allow young medical and dental professionals to combine a clinical career with research. Universities and NHS trusts then submitted applications to run research programmes to support ACFs.
Funding has now been granted for 104 programmes over five years, eleven of them at this University. The quality of academic and clinical training available was the key criterion for the allocation of the programmes, which will allow the University to offer 66 Academic Clinical Fellowships - 15 of them this year.
Programmes offered
Programmes will offered in cardiovascular medicine, clinical genetics, medical education, dermatology, gastroenterology, obstetrics and gynaecology, occupational medicine, ophthalmology, psychiatry, general practice and rheumatology, with the Fellowships within each advertised nationally.
Professor Phil Baker, Associate Head of the School and its Director of Research, said: “I am pleased that the University has been so outstandingly successful in its bids for the new ACFs, which we feel will substantially enhance the academic career opportunities for doctors in training. I am grateful to everyone who put so much hard work into preparing for the bids, particularly Professor David Thompson, whose painstaking efforts and strategic leadership have resulted in this remarkable success.”
Clinical and research work
The Fellowships will allow trainee medics wishing to combine clinical and research work to spend a quarter to a third of their time on academic training and apply for a research training fellowship, at the same time as launching their specialist clinical training. The long-term aim is to increase the NHS’s research capacity, by developing an expert workforce to support all aspects of clinical research.
Professor Baker continued: "These programmes will allow us to attract the cream if the crop to Manchester, as well as emphasising the University’s role as an excellent place to train clinical doctors. We are already receiving enquiries from strong candidates, including from London hospitals, and if their current base hasn't been awarded ACFs in their area many strong candidates will be looking to move.
“These doctors' primary activity will be treating patients, and local people could further benefit from their research through early recruitment to clinical trials.”
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