PGCert Experimental Medicine (Musculoskeletal)

Course description

Our PGCert Experimental Medicine (Musculoskeletal) programme will give nurses, doctors, clinical researchers and research programme managers the skills needed to work in early phase clinical studies.

You will learn how to master experimental medicine with a focus on musculoskeletal through a combination of traditional teaching and hands-on learning that includes spending a year working closely with the Experimental Medicine Musculoskeletal Team of the Biomedical Research Centre while also taking four structured taught units.

The taught units will see you learn the details of designing and delivering Phase 1 clinical studies, understanding the pre-clinical data required before a clinical programme can commence, and how to optimise early clinical studies to provide evidence for progressing a promising drug or intervention into Phase II/III clinical testing.

Alongside the taught elements, you will have a named supervisor and be exposed to tasks required in the setup, delivery, interpretation and audit of a clinical study.

Nursing and physician students may participate in patient care, including new and follow-on patient clinics, treatment and care-giving episodes with patients.

For non-registered clinical researchers and research programme managers, no direct patient contact is envisaged and you may participate in clinical trial setup, protocol amendments, database setup, data entry, costing and billing for clinical research.

You will be able to choose two aspects of your direct clinical trial research experience to write up for your two research projects in a dissertation format. This will give you the skills and knowledge required to critically report medical, scientific and clinically related sciences for peer review.

Aims

The primary purpose of the PGCert in Experimental Medicine (Musculoskeletal) is to provide you with the opportunity to work within a premier Biomedical Research Centre and, through a mix of taught and experiential learning, master the discipline of experimental medicine related to musculoskeletal.

Coursework and assessment

You will be assessed through oral presentations, single best answer exams, written reports and dissertation.

For each research project, you will write a dissertation of 10,000 to 15,000 words. Examples of suitable practical projects include the following.

Career opportunities

This course is relevant to physician, nursing and clinical researchers and research programme managers who are considering careers that involve Phase 1 clinical studies.

The course provides theoretical and experiential learning and offers a foundation for roles within other experimental medicine centres within the UK and EU, as well as careers in academia, the pharmaceutical industry and clinical trials management.

The PGCert is ideal for high-calibre graduates and professionals wishing to undertake research training in the field of musculoskeletal medicine.