News

Leading medical teacher takes the helm at Queen’s Campus

(2 August 2005)

One of the country’s leading medical educators has joined Durham University as Academic Director for Undergraduate Medicine at Queen’s Campus, Stockton.

Professor John McLachlan comes to Durham from the new Peninsula Medical School - a partnership in the South West of the Universities of Exeter and Plymouth with the NHS in Devon and Cornwall - where he was Director of Phase 1 Medicine. He succeeds retiring Professor John Hamilton who founded Durham’s Medicine Programme in 2001.

Durham University Vice-Chancellor, Sir Kenneth Calman, said: “Medicine and health are a central part of the educational and research agenda for Durham University and I am sure that someone of the calibre of Professor McLachlan will build on the achievement of the past five years and bring a new level of expertise and experience to enhance our reputation.”

Dean of Medicine and Chair of the School of Health, Professor Pali Hungin, said : “We have developed an innovative curriculum at Queen’s Campus with an enthusiastic team who have established solid links with the local NHS. Professor McLachlan’s appointment is a significant step forward in the continuing development of the Medicine Programme.”

Professor McLachlan’s research background is in embryology, and his work has been published in many journals including Nature, Proceedings of the Royal Society and Development. His most recent paper in this area, on human sex determination, was featured in Nature Update and on radio and television. He also produced an award-winning undergraduate textbook on medical embryology. He writes regularly for the popular magazine Pregnancy and Birth.

From 1995 onwards, he began to focus on educational roles, especially in assessment and in e-learning, and developed a parallel research career in this area. He served on the Scottish Medical Dean’s Curriculum Group, and was invited to join the Scottish Qualification Authority. As Director at the new Peninsula Medical School he developed and introduced the first two years of the course, admitting the first students in September 2002. In 2003, he was awarded a National Teaching Fellowship for his work in medical teaching. He currently advises the General Medical Council on its proposed programme of revalidation of doctors, and on the assessment of competence of overseas doctors. Recently he has been appointed Editor in Chief of the leading international journal Medical Education.

In 2000, he was awarded a grant by the Wellcome Consortium to work with the artist Helen Storey. This project resulted in an award winning art exhibition (“Mental”), which premiered in Copenhagen, and then moved to the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London. The Observer described it as “a wonderful liberating truth in these deterministic days of genetic cloning” while Time Out called it “utterly mesmerising”.

Professor McLachlan is currently External Examiner for the medical courses at Southampton and Edinburgh, and was previously Raine Visiting Professor at the University of Western Australia. He is a graduate of Glasgow University, and gained his PhD at the Middlesex Hospital Medical School. He is married, and his two children are now (mostly) grown up and (usually) living away from home.

For further information contact : Professor John McLachlan, Academic Director of Undergraduate Medicine. Tel 0191 334 0323 e-mail j.c.mclachlan@durham.ac.uk Keith Seacroft, Head of Media Affairs. Tel 0191 3346074, e mailkeith.seacroft@durham.ac.uk