MSc in Surgical Science and Practice

This module will enable you to re-evaluate your current practice as a clinical educator against principles of worthwhile education and take your next steps in a lifelong journey of developing an enhanced educational practice.

The aim of this module is to develop your capacity to be an educator of postgraduate doctors (including surgeons) and other clinicians. It will cover the main conceptual and theoretical traditions that underpin teaching and learning. You will develop your capacity to teach and support learning using a range of modalities such as designing small group learning sessions, including using simulation; coaching and facilitation; in-the-moment and structured feedback; and reflective practice. 

Over the week the module will challenge the climate prevailing in some postgraduate training programmes, which sees developing clinicians as limited to training in a set of technical competences which, once assessed and validated by an examining body, produce a rounded clinician.

As well as what a clinician can do, the module will explore how a rounded clinician thinks, who they are and who they are becoming.

This view of clinician development has profound implications for the role of the clinical educator and means that during the week, you will attend to the importance of getting to know as individuals those you supervise, or who otherwise learn from you; it will explore how you, as educator, can support the development of wise judgement; and how you can identify and support the development of those character virtues that make for better doctors and clinicians. 

Along with these fundamentals of becoming a clinical educator, the module will address how technology influences educational practice, including the implications of developments in Artificial Intelligence and the incorporation of augmented reality technology into learning.

This module introduces practical and academic principles of human factors science as applied to systems of care. You will be equipped with the skills needed to apply human factors principles to the design of tasks, the assessment of equipment, and the measurement of human performance.  

You will learn how to apply human factors approaches to healthcare improvement through highly interactive small group discussions, hands on activities, real world examples, and written assignments. This module provides the opportunity to learn more about and discuss the following topics: 

• Introduction to human factors
• Surgical and medical perspectives on patient safety and human factors
• Human factors in healthcare
• Statistics and study design
• Systems approach to quality and safety in healthcare
• Practical skills in patient safety
• Task analysis and synthesis
• Equipment and workspace design
• Teamwork, simulation and non-technical skills
• Analysing and making recommendations from incidents. 

The aim of this module is to give you a greater understanding of how healthcare systems and organisations work and the role of clinical leaders in them. It seeks to enable you to become more effective both in day-to-day leadership and in leading change. 

The module will explore how healthcare systems are structured and funded and how decisions are made. It will explore how leadership works across strategic, operational and interpersonal domains, and explore the challenges of bringing about change in complex systems. 

The week consists of a combination of interactive taught sessions and guest speaker sessions, and finishes with a simulation exercise designed to put your new leadership skills and understandings into practice.

This module introduces the principles and practical applications of Quality Improvement (QI). In healthcare settings, QI is always in the context of multiple overlapping and nested (one within another) systems. It will introduce how to think about and analyse complex systems and illustrate with examples from hospital care systems. Making change stick in the long run is a recurring challenge for QI in clinical settings. The module will address resistance to change, and the factors that increase the chances of change being accepted and sustained over time. 

Topics covered include: 

• A brief history of QI in healthcare
• QI principles and methods
• Analysing and understanding care systems, pathways and processes (including value stream/process mapping)
• Psychological, social and organisational aspects of change
• Measurement for improvement
• Understanding and improving patient and staff experience; methods for patient and staff engagement
• Principles for optimising productive systems (including lean production and optimising flow)
• How to set up and organise QI projects (including Model for Improvement, PDSA cycles and project work-planning)
• Making change stick.

The recent pace of innovation in healthcare is unprecedented. Rapid advances in many fields promise to disrupt current surgical care. 

The 'Future of Surgery' report, from the Royal College of Surgeons, considered the changes that are occurring and how they will impact on patients, surgeons and the health service over the next 20 years. The Commission identified four areas that will have the greatest impact: 

1. Minimally-invasive surgery
2. Imaging, virtual reality and augmented reality
3. Big data, genomics and artificial intelligence
4. Specialised interventions (eg 3D bioprinting, nano-surgery, artificial organs)

This module will provide insight into these different areas of innovation and explores both the challenges and opportunities they provide. You will develop an understanding of the innovation pathway and develop their skills in idea generation, needs analysis, evaluation of innovation, developing a business case and pitching it. Students will also explore the challenges of adapting to new innovations in their day-to-day practice.

The week includes a visit to Intuitive and exposure to surgical robots and virtual reality simulation. During the week teams will put together a case for an innovation and finish the week with a pitching session and feedback. The groups will also explore aspects of coping with innovation and introducing innovations to the healthcare environment.

This module will introduce the basic concepts and skills of evidence-based health care. You will be facilitated to turn clinical queries into focussed questions, from which you will search the evidence. You will learn the skills to develop a search strategy for use across several databases. You will also learn about the importance of matching a research question with the most appropriate study design, and then be guided through suitable critical appraisal techniques, so that you can understand how and why published research can be used in clinical practice. 

You will learn with peers in small groups, and through the week, will have the opportunity to decide on a relevant question, search the evidence and present a critical appraisal for shared discussion.

By the end of the module you will be able to:

• Formulate an answerable clinical question
• Search for relevant publications quickly and efficiently
• Critically appraise various types of studies, including randomised controlled trials (RCTs), systematic reviews of RCTs, Diagnostic, Prognostic and Qualitative studies
• Understand some basic statistical concepts required to interpret studies
• Consider translation of evidence into practice

While the taught modules emphasise breadth, enabling students to develop as well-rounded clinician leaders, the dissertation component of the masters is your opportunity to develop depth of expertise in an area of special interest, aligned with your career aspirations. 

One of the University of Oxford’s profound strengths is inter-disciplinary learning and research. Rather than sharp lines drawn between disciplines, Oxford students and researchers relish crossing boundaries.  They use the light shone by one discipline’s way of understanding the world to understand unexpected and unexplored features of another domain of knowledge. This is supported by the College system. Scholars and researchers from different disciplines share meals, common rooms and social activities. Many unexpected insights and fruitful collaborations have their origins in serendipitous encounters and friendships enabled by this unique element of academic life at Oxford.  

Accordingly, our students are encouraged to consider the methods employed by, for example, sociologists, political scientists, innovators or educational theorists, as well as classical evidence-based medicine approaches. Cross-disciplinary methodologies can yield new insights into healthcare problems, be they perennial challenges (tackling waits and delays; reducing errors and waste to ‘get it right first time’) or new problems and opportunities introduced by societal change and technical advances. 

Freedom to define the topic you want to research 

You are free to define the research topic that is most motivating and relevant for you. The only requirement is that it relate to the MSc curriculum. In some cases the topic relates to a single module, as in researching a clinical innovation or pursuing a quality improvement initiative. In other cases the topic bridges several modules. Examples of recent topics chosen by students for their research project include:

• The timing of intervention for major complications after oesophagogastric cancer surgery and length of hospital stay: a single centre retrospective cohort study
• Dental wrong site surgery: analysis, intervention and prevention
• Improving the outpatient clinic service for shoulder and elbow patients
• What Women Want: a qualitative analysis of women's motivation to pursue surgical careers
• Identifying the training needs and resource requirements for a clinical research capacity building course in a low-income setting
• Cardiothoracic Surgery in the Military Health System: maintaining critical wartime capability and surgeon readiness
• Exploring the role of collaborative case conferences in aortic treatment pathways: a quality improvement initiative
• Establishing a 3D printing laboratory in low-resource healthcare setting: a feasibility study
• Reducing cardiac surgery day of surgery cancellations using quality improvement and human factors approaches
• Clinical Frailty in Urology in the emergency setting.
• The potential for AI to assist interpretation of multimodal imaging. 

Official course title

Master of Science in Surgical Science and Practice

Award

Course code

TM_JV9M9C1

This course is part-time. You will be required to attend a week of face-to-face teaching in Oxford for each module. Dates of modules for the current or coming academic year will be available on the department's website (See Information about the department offering this course).

The allocation of graduate supervision for this course is the responsibility of the Nuffield Department of Surgical Sciences and allocation will usually be made by the Course Director.

For the dissertation year, it is sometimes possible to accommodate students preferences to work with a supervisor. A supervisor may be found outside the Nuffield Department of Surgical Sciences. This is due to the wide range of topics that can be chosen for the dissertation. 

To complete the MSc in Surgical Science and Practice, you will need to:

• attend the six compulsory modules which are taught in person in Oxford;
• undertake and pass an assessement for each module; and
• after attending all six modules, complete and pass an assessed dissertation based on a work-based research project that relates to the material studied in the taught modules.

The assignments help you develop and demonstrate your growing knowledge and understanding of the subject areas covered and will provide you with the opportunity to develop your analytical, critical appraisal, and logical thinking skills. The assignments are an opportunity to apply what you have learned to your own work setting or practice, helping you translate classroom learning to your own context.

You will be given written feedback on each of the assignments you submit.

Most students commencing this part-time course are already in full-time employment. The MSc aims to prepare you for your future working life and to equip you for:

• Managing surgical/healthcare units and leading surgical/healthcare team
• Leading initiatives, such as quality improvement or development a new pathway/ procedure/technology
• Undertaking surgical and clinical research
• Embarking upon an academic career pathway
• Developing new educational programmes or taking on greater educational responsibilities

Past students have also gone on to carry out doctoral level research (DPhil/PhD) at Oxford and elsewhere. For examples of how course graduates have put their learning into practice and used the qualification to develop their careers, read profiles of recent students on the department website (See Information about the department offering this course).

This course is offered by the Nuffield Department of Surgical Sciences.

• Course page on the department's website
• Funding information from the department
• Academic staff
• Departmental research
• Contact details

*Three-year average (applications for entry in 2024-25 to 2026-27)

• a first-class or strong upper second-class undergraduate degree in medicine, which must be recognised by the UK General Medical Council (GMC)

Applicants whose undergraduate degree is in biomedical science or a related discipline, rather than medicine, will also be considered for entry to the course.

For applicants with a bachelor's degree from the USA, the minimum overall GPA that is normally required to meet the undergraduate-level requirement is 3.6 out of 4.0.

GRE General Test scores

No Graduate Record Examination (GRE) or GMAT scores are sought.

Other qualifications, evidence of excellence and relevant experience

To be eligible for the course, you will need to either:

• hold a primary qualification in medicine recognised by the GMC, or an equivalent diploma in basic surgical training and education in the case of overseas candidates;
• have held or currently occupy a training or service post at ST1 level or above (UK candidates), or provide evidence of basic surgical training including a logbook (overseas candidates);
• possess an entry level qualification for specialist training in surgery, eg MRCS or international equivalent;
• show evidence of several years practical surgical training; or
• be able to demonstrate a commitment to surgical training and a realistic prospect of completing it.

Or:

As an alternative to surgical qualifications, training and experience as noted above, equivalent achievements in clinical specialties focused on skilled therapeutic intervention will confer eligibility.  These specialties include interventional cardiology, neurology and radiology, endoscopic gastroenterology, obstetrics and gynaecology and dentistry. Candidates from other fields including nursing may be considered admissible at the discretion of the faculty if they can make a case for equivalence in terms of the skill set required for their practice and in their prospects of being able to apply the knowledge and skills acquired during the MSc in their place of work.

Successful candidates will normally provide evidence of all of the following:

• a demonstrated interest in one or more of the broad areas covered in the course’s taught modules
• motivation and ability to complete the course including ability to take study leave or otherwise have time to attend the taught module in-person teaching weeks, invest time before and after each in-person teaching week to prepare and to carry out the module assignment, and in the final year to carry out research as a basis for the dissertation
• a clear and well-argued understanding of the benefits of the course to the candidate’s current employment and future prospects.

Evidence of relevant academic work, eg presentations and publications, will be considered.

You will need to be able to write a good standard of academic English to pass the assessments. For those that require a refresher, Oxford Lifelong Learning offers a 10-week, online course to refresh and improve reading, note-making and essay-writing skills.
 

Interviews are normally held as part of the admissions process.

A telephone or online interview will be arranged for those who appear to fulfil the basic requirements for entry to the course and performance at interview will play a significant role in assessment of the selection criteria.

Interviews will be held after each standard application deadline. They will normally be conducted by two interviewers.

The purpose of the interview is to:

• establish your level of interest, motivation and potential to benefit from the course of study
• clarify any uncertainties about compliance with requirements; and
• ensure that you are fully informed about the level of commitment required by the course of study.

Where concerns remain about the suitability of applicants which cannot be resolved by other methods, they may be required to complete a short written assignment, for example a critical appraisal of a specified scientific paper.

Further information about funding opportunities for this course can be found on the Nuffield Department of Surgical Sciences website.

The following colleges accept students on this course:

• Kellogg College
• St Catherine's College
• Trinity College
• Wycliffe Hall

Your statement should be written in English and explain your motivation for applying for the course at Oxford, your relevant experience and education, and the specific areas that interest you and/or you intend to specialise in. 

Please consider that a personal statement that gives the assessors a clear sense of who you are and what you care about, is more helpful than a more generic, less individual, statement.

There are no restrictions on font size or line spacing, although the document should be clearly legible.

 Email: [email protected]