Position Details

Birmingham Medical School, Institute of Clinical Sciences, College of Medical and Dental Sciences

Location: University of Birmingham, Edgbaston, Birmingham UK

Full time starting salary is normally in the range £61,142 to £126,281 depending on experience

Clinical Post

Part Time (24 working hours per week)

Permanent

Closing date: 22nd May 2024

Background

Community Based Medicine (CBM) is a longitudinal strand that runs through each of the five years of the MBChB degree course, during which students have placements in General Practices across the West Midlands region. Please see the following for background information: https://www.birmingham.ac.uk/schools/medical-school/community-based-medicine/index.aspx

We are seeking to appoint a new member of staff to join the College of Medical and Dental Sciences to strategically lead and develop community-based education (CBM) within the MBChB curriculum. The new appointee will join a well-established team of academics to oversee and lead on enhancements to the development of the programme, as well as creating new materials for teaching and contributing to the delivery of CBM teaching.

The post holder will work with the MBChB Programme Director, Deputy Programme Director, and Year Leads and CBM Year Leads to design and implement new strategies for delivering CBM teaching across all 5 years of the MBChB curriculum. They will also work extensively with our large number of stakeholder GP practices to lead on ensuring our CBM teaching is innovative and appropriately aligned to the requirements of the MLA. This will include work to lead on the development of learning outcomes and align them with other teaching components within the curriculum, lead on the development of new teaching resources, developing additional opportunities for formative assessment and feedback, designing appropriate summative assessment and ensuring a close alignment of these new learning outcomes to assessment design and the GMC outcomes for graduates and MLA content map. The successful candidate will also work extensively with our large number of stakeholder GP practices to lead on ensuring our CBM teaching is innovative and appropriately aligned to the requirements of the MLA. The role is designed for an experienced general practitioner educator with a good theoretical and practical understanding of CBM who will contribute to the design and delivery of a first-class education for future doctors. 

The College of Medical and Dental Sciences at the University of Birmingham is a major international centre for research and education in medicine and medical sciences. In recent years the College has expanded dramatically, and now has one of the largest intakes of undergraduate students in the UK It employs over 1,500 teaching, research, technical, support and administrative staff. 

The MBChB is the College’s flagship programme. It is a complex educational programme, which dominates the life of the College and covers teaching both University and clinical environments. Clinical teaching takes place within 15 teaching Trusts and in over 100 general practices across the West Midlands and beyond. The annual MBChB intake is now 400 students bringing the total across the five-year programme to more than 2,000 (including students undertaking an intercalated degree).

Role Summary

Contribute at a senior level on a sustained basis to the whole range of teaching, leadership and administration. In addition you will be expected to contribute to academic citizenship, likely to be demonstrated through generous, mutually respectful and supportive working relationships with all staff and students.

Teaching is likely to include: (a) development and leadership of major teaching programmes or equivalent; and (b) enhancement of the student experience or employability, that are of manifest benefit to the College and the University. It is expected that you will demonstrate a significant contribution to the advancement of teaching (policy, practice, standards) of the subject, provide leadership in teaching and learning that is innovative to the subject area or institution, with a significant contribution to the debate nationally about teaching. 

Management and administration is likely to include Departmental/School leadership and management activity with University wide involvement – for example through sustained high value impact knowledge transfer, enterprise, business engagement, public engagement or similar activities. 

Main Duties

Education 

You will contribute across the range of teaching and learning activities:

• making a significant contribution to the pedagogical knowledge base of the subject that advances teaching through the enhancement of practice, the development of teaching resources and/or through practice-based research; 
• leading on the management and the development of approaches to teaching and learning, including designing innovative approaches and supporting colleagues to use them in the subject area or institution;
• lead on curriculum design at module and programme level to ensure it is contemporary, inclusive, engaging and academically challenging;
• actively engaging students in curriculum design;
• making an impactful, high quality contribution to debates about education policy, methods and practices through internal and external publications, subject societies and conference activity;
• developing an external profile evidenced through engaging in external quality assurance activities related to teaching, eg. external examining and engaging with/supporting education in other institutions;
• where appropriate, playing an important and sustained role in the recruitment and admission of students; 
• where appropriate, co-supervising doctoral students to completion; 
• leading the development of teaching, learning and assessment policies and strategies;
• acting as an education mentor to colleagues in the School/Department/College or more widely;
• leading the development of new and appropriate approaches to learning and teaching;
• leading sustained high value impact in knowledge transfer and enterprise (including business engagement, public engagement) that enhances the student experience and/or or employability, and is of manifest benefit to learning and teaching in the College and the University;
• undertaking own teaching, which will include teaching and examining courses at a range of levels, planning and reviewing own teaching approaches, developing programme proposals, supervision, marking and examining. You will ensure that your teaching practice is informed by discipline-based research, through participating in the research culture of the School. 

Management/administration

Lead activities in the Department/ School and represent the School on College/ University committees or working groups. Where appropriate to the discipline, this is likely to include some but not all of the responsibilities listed below. 

• making an important contribution to the development and running of the Department or School, for example, leading activity on teaching assessment; 
• leading a successful international engagement at School or College level;
• developing and managing staff and resources in support of major teaching activities;
• making important contributions to the development of the Department’s (and the University) learning and teaching strategy;
• contributing significantly to the development and delivery of knowledge transfer, enterprise, business engagement and public engagement activities with sustained high value impact of manifest benefit to the College and the University in a teaching/education context;
• develops and implements a culture (including policies and procedures) that promotes Equality and values diversity and inclusion;
• leading, serving on and assisting the work of committees and task and finish groups beyond School/Department, e.g., Senate, Council, University Education or Research Committee etc.;
• leading external committees, e.g., those associated with public/professional bodies or delivery of activities for an external body at an appropriate level, e.g., chairing sub committees associated with large elements of work;
• leading/project managing a team to devise and implement a new and/or revised process (e.g. new programme or a recruitment drive);
• making a sustained contribution to widening participation, schools outreach and/or public understanding of the discipline;
• contributing to administrative activities within the University (e.g. appeals panels, working groups).

Citizenship

• identifying wellbeing issues within the School/College/University and developing appropriate solutions to address these;
• taking collective ownership of challenges faced by the School or College and working with colleagues to develop solutions;
• mentoring and coaching of colleagues, particularly those in the early stages of their career. 

Person Specification

• This is a clinical academic post and as such the post holder should be a doctor who is fully registered with a licence to practise with the GMC and participating in clinical appraisal and revalidation.
• Appointment at Associate Clinical Professor level will be considered for those who have extensive experience in practice, education and leadership.
• Demonstrated excellence in Learning and Teaching, Leadership and Management.
• It would be desirable for the post holder to have a postgraduate qualification in Education e.g. PGCert or higher qualification.
• Understanding and experience of different teaching and assessment methods, and aligning teaching and assessment. 
• It would be desirable for the post holder to have experience of teaching undergraduates and / or understanding the standard required of a graduating medical student.
• It would be desirable for the post holder to have some experience of teaching and/or evidence of interest in the longitudinal theme they wish to lead.

Learning and teaching requirements

An excellent teaching profile and performance in terms of both impact and quality. Teaching quality demonstrated to be informed by an appropriate level of scholarship. 

Evidence of success under the following headings.

• High national reputation for the development of teaching and learning excellence within the discipline.
• Successful and sustained use of a range of appropriate teaching methods, and assessment strategies that promote high quality learning, including learning that is flexible, distinctive and current and stimulates learners’ natural curiosity. 
• Significant and sustained contribution to one or more of the following: strategic development of new programmes, approaches to learning, the development of learning resources.
• High quality and sustained contributions to fostering excellence in teaching activities more widely, i.e. in the Department/School or College and/or externally.
• Mentoring and expert advice which develops the skills of colleagues in teaching and in fostering learning.
• Sustained high value impact knowledge transfer and enterprise that is of manifest benefit to the College and University.

Management and administration-related requirements

Demonstrated significant achievement in management and administration-related activities, which may include leadership of activities/initiatives. Evidence of success under the following headings.

• Successful and sustained performance in significant administrative/managerial role (s) (e.g. exams officer).
• Significant and sustained high quality innovative contributions to the management/administration of the Department/School/College or University.
• Successful and sustained contribution to the corporate life of the School/College/University, displaying willingness to contribute actively to committees, collaborative teaching and administrative tasks.
• Actively promotes equality and diversity to internal and external stakeholders.
• Able to use data to identify equality and diversity issues. 
• Experience of developing interventions to address equality and diversity issues.

Further particulars can be found here

Informal enquiries to Professor Kate Thomas, email: c.p.thomas@bham.ac.uk or telephone: 0121 4146071

We believe there is no such thing as a 'typical' member of University of Birmingham staff and that diversity in its many forms is a strength that underpins the exchange of ideas, innovation and debate at the heart of University life. We are committed to proactively addressing the barriers experienced by some groups in our community and are proud to hold Athena SWAN, Race Equality Charter and Disability Confident accreditations. We have an Equality Diversity and Inclusion Centre that focuses on continuously improving the University as a fair and inclusive place to work where everyone has the opportunity to succeed. We are also committed to sustainability, which is a key part of our strategy. You can find out more about our work to create a fairer university for everyone on our website.