Our programme was the first MSc in Gastroenterology established in the UK. It is the longest established and most popular course of its kind, with very high satisfaction rating from our students.
The programme was started by Professor Dame Parveen Kumar DBE, co-founder and co-editor of the textbook “Kumar and Clark’s Clinical Medicine” (currently in its tenth edition), well-known around the world for its advancements in the medical training and education of students, doctors and nurses. While Professor Kumar no longer teaches on the programme, you will benefit from her previous input and years of continuous improvement informed by the needs of our students.
It is designed as both a thorough introduction and update in gastroenterology, hepatology and nutrition and will give you advanced knowledge and understanding of the field. It is aimed at practising clinicians wishing to understand the sciences underpinning clinical diseases and their management and is perfect if you want to acquire a number of invaluable skills including data analysis, research methods, treatment application, and diagnosis methodology. It is intended to complement your existing hands-on clinical training with knowledge of the basic science, research methodology and up-to-date research in the area.
The programme is approved by the British Society of Gastroenterology Education Committee.
It has been developed and is delivered by world-leading research- and clinically active academics and scientists working in the field of gastrointestinal and liver diseases. Throughout the course, you will meet and learn from these experts with regular pastoral teaching and support from the core teaching staff. Many alumni are themselves now leaders in the field. This is complemented by guest lectures from world-renowned professors, high-class scientists and dedicated doctors with a wealth of experience in the field.
Many of our faculty also provide expert clinical care to patients within the Digestive Diseases Services at Barts Health NHS Trust, one of the leading departments in the UK. Queen Mary University of London's Faculty of Medicine and Dentistry is comprised of two renowned and prestigious teaching hospitals: St Bartholomew’s and The Royal London. Both continue to make an outstanding contribution to modern medicine and together have been consistently ranked among the top five universities in the UK for medicine. As a student on this course, you will benefit from our links to Barts Health NHS Trust and access to clinical academics.
If you are studying for the MSc, the final project is your chance to conduct in-depth and independent research on a topic that is of direct interest to you and your career goals. For on-site students, the projects are almost always laboratory-based in our start-of-the-art Blizard laboratories, and are related to some aspect of gastroenterology, hepatology or nutrition. Online students can complete either a research project or case series reports. You will learn and develop skills including background reading, planning methods, lab work, analysing, writing up, presenting and discussing the data. The skills you will learn on the laboratory-based projects are generic and can be readily applied to clinical or patient-based research in the future.
If you are studying as an on-site student, you will have the fantastic opportunity to learn some endoscopy skills on our simulator. You will also be able to observe out-patient clinics, endoscopy and clinical meetings in hospital in the latter part of the course.