Frequently asked questions
What are Academic Foundation Programmes?
Academic doctors are practicing clinicians with an additional research interest.
Doctors working in every specialty, from surgery to public health, can practice as academics. Their potential interests and activities are many, and include basic laboratory research, clinical trials, education and epidemiological research.
To allow doctors to experience the special pleasures and fascination of academic medicine at an early stage in their careers, Academic Foundation Programmes (AFPs) have been developed.
They are specifically aimed at newly qualified doctors who are considering an academic career, and are designed to train them in both clinical medicine and research methods.
Full details of the NETFS Academic Foundation Programmes are available from the South Thames Foundation School.
They can also be accessed via the UKFPO website.
Why Barts and The London?
Barts and The London School of Medicine and Dentistry is a major centre of medical and dental education and research in London.
It was established in 1995 by the merger of the Medical College of St Bartholomew's Hospital and the London Hospital Medical College, each an important training institution with a long and distinguished history. This merger united the strengths of the two institutions and the skills of the staff involved in clinical care and in producing internationally acclaimed research.
Indeed, its success is evidenced by the results of the 2008 Research Assessment Exercise: using one of several measures of research success, Queen Mary came fourth in the UK, and first in London.
More about research at Barts and the London
The School's teaching hospitals serve a large area of east London with a diverse and multi-cultural population and one of the country's highest patient-to-student ratios.
As well as being an extremely busy acute hospital, Barts and The Royal London Hospitals are a major referral centres offering a comprehensive range of specialist services.
Parts of Barts Health are undergoing the largest and most complex hospital redevelopment project in the world. The £1 billion programme will replace many of the hospitals’ ageing buildings with state-of-the-art healthcare facilities to rival the best in Europe.
The Royal London is Britain’s biggest new h ospital, providing general and specialist services to the population of east London and beyond. The Hospital has its own helipad for flying in patients with major trauma from around the M25.The historic buildings of Barts, Britain’s oldest hospital, will be refurbished, alongside a major new building, to create a Cancer and Cardiac Centre of Excellence.