News

The College of Medicine (COM) is pleased to announce that the University of Birmingham’s College of Medical and Dental Sciences, in partnership with the Centre for Health Ageing Research and the MRC-ARUK Centre for Musculoskeletal Ageing Research, led by Professor Janet Lord, and the Complementary and Alternative Medicine Birmingham Research Alliance (CAMBRA), led by Dr Nicola Gale, will be the host of this year’s multi-disciplinary Student Summer School.

The focus of this year’s event will be: ‘Healthy Ageing: Enjoyment vs. Endurance’. Recent National Office of Statistics figures predict that by 2020, 1 in 5 adults (23% of the population) in the UK will be over 65. Our increasingly ageing population will present a unique set of social, economic and healthcare challenges which will need to be addressed with comparatively fewer healthcare resources. To do this a new perspective on health and ageing is essential.

The Summer School is a unique event that brings together students from different clinical backgrounds including medics, nurses, and the allied health professions with expert patients, internationally acclaimed academics and clinicians. It provides a locus for all to discuss the future of healthcare provision and expose young health professionals to multi-disciplinary ways of thinking and working.

Dr Michael Dixon, Chair of the College said, “We are delighted to be working in partnership with University of Birmingham as it has an outstanding reputation for education and research particularly regarding healthy ageing. The University’s recent MRC-ARUK award of a Centre of excellence in Musculoskeletal Ageing Research is testament to this.

“The College believes that this collaboration will provide an exceptional event for engaging young health professionals with a topic vital to public health and sustainable healthcare provision.”

Professor Janet Lord said, “At Birmingham we are committed to ensuring that the breakthroughs we make in understanding human ageing are translated into better health care and advice for older adults. This can only be achieved in full if we also educate the next generation of health care professionals. The summer school is an ideal vehicle for such an endeavour”.

Dr Nicola Gale, said, "The COM’s approach that considers wider social and psychological, as well as biomedical, perspectives in medicine will be particularly valuable for the student delegates when thinking about the complexity of providing high quality care that meets the needs of our diverse older population”.

The event will take place from 7-8th September, at the new Queen Elizabeth “super” hospital, Birmingham.

Confirmed expert speakers include;

• Prof Janet Lord, Professor of Immune Cell Biology and Director of the Centre for Healthy Ageing Research, University of Birmingham
• Dr Phil Atherton, RCUK Fellow in Molecular Nutrition, Faculty of Medicine and Health Science University of Nottingham
• Professor Sue Lanham-New, Head of the Department of Nutrition and Metabolism, University of Surrey
• Prof Jean McHale, Professor of Health Care Law, University of Birmingham
• Professor Richard Lilford, Professor in Clinical Epidemiology, University of Birmingham
• Julie Robinson, Founder and Instructor, Move It or Lose It

Notes for Editors

1. The College of Medicine is an alliance of doctors, nurses, allied professionals, practitioners and patients. It is committed to a patient-centred NHS and a new relationship between science, clinical opinion and patient choice. It is also committed to a more cost-effective NHS, providing better opportunities for individual and community health and self care.

2. The Summer School, now in its second year is an annual College of Medicine event aimed at bringing together students from different clinical backgrounds including medics, nurses and the allied healthcare professions, along with expert patients, scientists and clinicians to promote discourse and shared learning. 2011’s Summer School took place at the University of Southampton and focused on multi-disciplinary approaches to obesity.

For more information contact Kate Fismer at the College of Medicine. Tel. 07841 577181; Email: kate.fismer@collegeofmedicine.org.uk