Professor Arunthathi Mahendran

Profile

Arunthathi (pronounced: arun-duh-thi) Mahendran is Director of the School of Medicine (IHSE) and Professor of Education at the Faculty of Medicine and Dentistry, Queen Mary University of London, built on the historic foundations of St. Bartholomew’s Hospital Medical College and the London Hospital Medical College.  Arunthathi combines her academic and education research commitments with a clinical practice as a Consultant Transplant Surgeon at Barts Health Trust.  Access to learning through equity of opportunity and inclusive education are at the heart of all her endeavours. 

She undertook her specialist abdominal transplant surgery training at the Royal Free Hospital in London and Columbia University/New York Presbyterian Medical Centre in Manhattan, New York.  Prior to this, she was an ethics fellow at the Clinical Medical Ethics programme at the University of Chicago.  She completed a PhD in Education at Goldsmiths’, University of London, and was the 2018 Winner of the (BERA) British Educational Research Association Doctoral Thesis Award.  Her research interest explores the philosophy of practices of thinking, knowing and doing across disciplines in professional medical and clinical education.  She is the author of, ‘Moments of Rupture: the importance of affect in medical education and surgical training’, (Routledge 2019) which explores how surgeons make sense of clinical events of practice.  Her research has garnered her an international reputation as a pioneer in affect theory within medical curriculum and healthcare education.  In 2021, Queen Mary University awarded her the President and Principal’s Prize for excellence in education in recognition of her multiple innovations in healthcare education which led to the transformation of how patient care is delivered in East London communities. 

Research