Oxbridge Medica - Medical Courses

Dr Emyr Benbow
Consultant Histopathologist, Manchester

Dr Emyr Benbow’s main interest is in undergraduate and postgraduate medical education, successfully introducing educational change in the University of Manchester, locally and regionally in the NHS, and nationally at the Royal College of Pathologists. He has achieved major modernisation of the MRCPath in Histopathology Part 1, replacing essays with high quality MCQs and EMQs, by establishing and chairing question writing workshops to ensure quality and validity, and developing standard setting methods where none existed before. He has been an Examiner for the autopsy component of the MRCPath for many years, and has recently helped Professor Sebastian Lucas formulate proposals for modernising the autopsy assessment.

Dr Benbow has successfully designed and run communication skills workshops for trainee histopathologists in the North West Region, using a grant awarded by the Department of Health, a sum of £8,000. He was been elected onto the Council of the Royal College of Pathologists in 2005, having already joined, by invitation, working groups on Quality of Autopsy Practice; Run-through Training; Histopathology Run-through Training and Assessment; Pathology Core Curriculum and Public Relations. He is organiser of the histopathology component of the annual National Scientific Meeting of the Association of Clinical Pathologists.

As Chair of Manchester Medical School's Mind and Movement Module Management Group, with Professor Carl Whitehouse, he pioneered the first paperless problem based learning in the school, the first successful attempt to use this method to deliver core knowledge, in any British medical school. Rather than basing PBL tutorials on fictional patients, student learning is based on real community patients, which makes huge difference to student engagement in psychosocial issues. He provides the majority of the training for Objective Structured Clinical Examination (OSCE) examiners for Manchester's MB ChB. He regularly attends question writing workshops for the Universities Medical Assessments Partnership (UMAP), and is lead for quality control for the UMAP examination question bank, now shared by fifteen medical schools. He regularly contributes to question writing workshops for the General Medical Council’s PLAB Test. He chairs the emendation committee for the Progress Test for Manchester’s MB ChB examination, recently pioneering its application to all 5 years of the course. He also chairs the emendation committee for the Patient Management Problem paper for our final MB ChB examination.

Dr Benbow’s recent research has been limited because of major commitments in teaching in the University of Manchester, and a major service commitment for the NHS for Central Manchester and Manchester Children’s University Hospitals NHS Trust. However, he has published nearly 60 papers in peer-reviewed journals, including the Journal of Pathology, which now carries the highest impact factor of all journals in its field. Grant income has recently been limited because of teaching load, but Dr Benbow is currently the lead for the Manchester arm of a research project looking into the role of magnetic resonance imaging in Coroner's autopsies; this work is supported by a grant of £260,000, provided by the Department of Health, and held jointly with Dr Ian Roberts of the Radcliffe Infirmary, Oxford.

Dr Helen Baker
Consultant Histopathologist, Yorkshire.

Dr Helen Baker qualified MBChB in 1999 at the University of Leicester. This was followed by pathology training as part of the Yorkshire Deanery rotational training scheme. This included both Senior House Officer and Specialist Registrar positions. During this training period, she qualified as a general pathologist, but harboured a special interest in Autopsy Pathology. Indeed, this began as early as in her medical student years, during which time she spent an elective period in the Department of Forensic Medicine, Westmead Hospital, Sydney, under the supervision of Dr B S F Hulewicz. She also spent time as a student shadowing Dr D C Bouch, a Leicester based Forensic Pathologist.
As a Specialist Registrar, she undertook a period of training at the Medicolegal Centre, Sheffield, under the supervision of Professor C M Milroy, performing and observing both coroners and forensic cases.
At present, she is a Consultant Pathologist at the Mid Yorkshire Hospitals NHS Trust, a busy department, covering autopsy work for Dewsbury, Wakefield and Pontefract regions

Dr Michael Osborn
Consultant Histopathologist, London.

Dr Michael Osborn qualified from the United Medical and Dental Schools of Guys and St.Thomas’ Hospitals (University of London) in 1995, Proxime Accessit to the University of London Medal. He became a member of the Royal College of Surgeons of England in 2000 and a Member of the Royal College of Pathologists in 2005, becoming a Fellow in 2008. He currently works as a Consultant Histopathologist at Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust (St Marys Hospital, London) where he specialises in autopsy, gastrointestinal and breast pathology. He conducts Coronial autopsies for the Inner West London, and other Coroners at his Trust, and at a public mortuary. He has published papers on numerous subjects including gastrointestinal and autopsy pathology. He sits on several government committees and is heavily involved in teaching particularly in the area of autopsy pathology both to undergraduates and postgraduates. His BSc module “Death, Autopsy and Law” begins next spring at Imperial College, London.

Dr Kim Suvarna FRCPath, FRCP, BSc

Dr Suvarna is a Consultant Histopathologist, based at Sheffield Teaching Hospitals. He has a special interest in cardiovascular and respiratory/thoracic pathology and has developed an interest in autopsy skill training. He is an examiner for the Royal College of Pathologists as well as the Royal College of Surgeons. He took up his consultant position in 1994 in Sheffield. He has developed expertise in terms of cardiovascular deaths, with emphasis on post-operative disorders and complications related to surgery. He has operated a specialist referral service for autopsy histology, explanted hearts and is an independent pathology examiner for a variety of Coroners across the UK. He has expertise in industrial lung disorders, maternal deaths, and provides specialist coaching for trainees in difficulty locally.

Dr Helen M. Doran, MA, MB,BS, FRCPath

Dr Helen M. Doran, obtained her MA in Literature Humanities at Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford, before going on to do her MB,BS degree at the Royal Free Hospital School of Medicine, London. She trained as a pathologist in London and Cambridge, including a year as Senior Registrar at Papworth Hospital specialising in cardiothoracic pathology including heart-lung transplantation. She has been a member of the Association for European Cardiovascular Pathology since its foundation in 2001 (as the continuation of the European School of Cardiovascular Pathology) and has been a specialist cardiac referral pathologist for the UK cardiac pathology network (UKCPN) since it was set up by the Department of Health in 2006 as part of the National Service Framework. She currently works as a consultant Histopathologist at Wythenshawe Hospital (University Hospitals of South Manchester NHS Trust) which contains a Heart-Lung Transplant Unit, Regional Cardiothoracic Surgery Unit, North-West Lung Centre, North-West Heart Centre, Adult Cystic Fibrosis Unit, Pulmonary Oncology Unit and tertiary referral services for Interstitial lung disease and occupational lung disease.

Dr Charles Wilson
Forensic Pathologist, Manchester

Dr Paul Bishop
Consultant Respiratory Pathologist, Manchester

Dr Nigel Meadows
Manchester Coroner, Manchester

Dr Gwen Ayers
Toxicologist, Manchester

Dr Vikki Howarth
Consultant Histopathologist, Manchester

Dr Vivek Mudaliar
Consultant Histopathologist, Shrewsbury

Vivek Mudaliar is a consultant pathologist at the Shrewsbury & Telford Hospital NHS Trust. He has extensive experience with autopsies at a number of mortuaries, and has wide experience with inquestible cases, which he claims has nothing to do with him moving into the area. His only vice is grilling trainees, to ensure that the traumatic experiences of his registrarship are passed duly on. He is an enthusiastic speaker with a passion for teaching.

Dr Les Davidson
Consultant Histopathologist, Leeds