Peninsula Medical School

The Peninsula Medical School is a new distributed medicalschool in the South West of England involving collaboration between the Universities of Exeterand Plymouth and the NHS. It had its first intake of undergraduate students in September 2002 andcurrently has three cohorts of undergraduate medical students. The Peninsula PostgraduateHealth Institute (PPHI) was recently formed, following a merger between the postgraduateprogrammes of the Peninsula Medical School and the Faculty of Health and Social Work at the Universityof Plymouth. PPHI currently has 239 master's level students and 49 PhD students.

As part of the School's commitment to research excellenceit is offering a three year PhD studentship within the Institute of Clinical Education and Institute ofHealth and Social Care Research, available from October 2005. A bursary will be payable to thestudent, plus fees.  The successful candidate will also complete credit-rated research modules offered bythe School, such as Introduction to Systematic Reviews and Meta-analyses and Qualitative andQuantitative Research Methods in Healthcare, leading to a Postgraduate Certificate inclinical research. You may also have the opportunity to contribute to the School's undergraduateteaching programme.

You will join a multidisciplinary team to undertakeresearch to produce an evidenced-based clinical pharmacology and therapeutics curriculum, and teaching andlearning material to support the safe and effective prescribing of junior doctors. You will becollecting data using a variety of quantitative and qualitative methods including questionnaires, focusgroups, interviews, and assessments of junior doctors' knowledge and skills.

The research will be jointly supervised by faculty in theInstitute of Clinical Education (Dr David Bristow, Reader in Pharmacology and Clinical Education, DrBen Benjamin, Consultant in Acute Medicine and Hon Professor of Medicine) and Institute ofHealth and Social Care Research (Prof Nicky Britten, Professor of Applied Health Care Research) and youwill be based in Exeter, Plymouth or Truro.

The studentship is suitable for a graduate in sociology,psychology, education or a related social sciences discipline such as anthropology. We expect you tohave a First or Upper Second Class Honours degree. A Master's degree is desirable, althoughnot essential. You will be interested in medical education research and have experience inqualitative research methodologies. You will have good communication skills and work well in a team.

Informal inquiries about the research project can be madeto either Dr David Bristow email  donna.taylor@pms.ac.uk or telephone 01752 238011or Prof Nicky Britten email wendy.toms@pms.ac.uk or telephone 01392 264859,although applications must be made in accordance with the details shown below.  

Potential applicants should request a postgraduateprospectus and an application form from Jane Prowse (jane.prowse@pms.ac.uk). Please return yourcompleted application form, CV, and the names and email addresses of two academic referees to:Postgraduate Admissions, Peninsula Medical School, Tamar Science Park, Research Way, Plymouth, PL68BU.

CLOSING DATE:    WEDNESDAY 6 JULY 2005

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