Western Trust Chief Executive welcomes first cohort of medical students from Ulster University’s Graduate Entry Medical School at Magee Campus

Neil Guckian said: “On behalf of the Western Trust I warmly welcome the very first cohort of medical students from Ulster University who begin their clinical placements this week in Altnagelvin Hospital. I wish to pay tribute to the MedEdWest Team and our medical and nursing staff for their hard work and dedication in ensuring that the first group of students receive the highest level of training and support during their clinical placements over the coming months.

Neil continued: “The role of medical education is to develop competent and caring healthcare practitioners who are capable of providing the highest level of care to their patients. MedEdWest delivers undergraduate (UG) medical education to Queen’s University Belfast (QUB) and Royal College of Surgeons Ireland (RCSI) 3/4/5 year medical students and postgraduate (PG) medical education for Doctors in Training for the Northern Ireland Medical and Dental Training Agency (NIMDTA). MedEdWest now has a proud and established relationship with the University of Ulster. The Western Trust continues its long-standing tradition of providing excellent education and training for medical students, doctors in training and continuing professional development for medical staff and continues to cultivate the strong on-going relationships with their stakeholders, including the General Medical Council (GMC).

Sinead Doherty, Head of Service, Medical and Dental Education and Training, said: “ This is an exciting time for MedEdWest as we make the final preparations and work with wards and medical staff to welcome the new medical students to their first clinical placement. We are very proud to be part of a medical school in the City which is fabulous for the local community. The medical students will be placed in our general medical and surgical wards. There will be an increase of medical students numbers from August 2023, when we will also welcome the UU cohort 2, to both Altnagevlin and the South West Acute Hospital until ‘business as usual’ to 2025 when they will graduate as Doctors.

Sinead continued: “Our continued growth, innovation and vision translates to consistently frantic but creative education centres with a seamless undergraduate and postgraduate structure throughout both sectors. In medical education, the new ways of educating must be embraced and we will lead the way in training and assessing our medical students, Physician associates and doctors for the NHS of the future not of the past. We are proud of our continuous expansion of faculty to include: educators; simulation educators; nursing staff; technicians; administration; pastoral support and academic leads. We will continually build on our theme “The West is Best”.