The Hull York Medical School (HYMS) has been handed a major international award recognising its excellence in medical education.
HYMS was the only UK medical school, and one of only eight international medical schools, to receive the accolade as recognition of their excellence at an international conference of the Association for Medical Education in Europe (AMEE).
The awards, which were the first to be made under AMEE’s new ASPIRE initiative, were presented at the conference in Prague in front of over 3,000 people.
Awards were distributed in three categories- assessment of students, student engagement in the curriculum and in the medical school, and social responsibility and accountability as a mission of the medical school.
HYMS, which was founded in 2002 and has recently celebrated its tenth anniversary year, was presented an award in the category of social accountability.
Dr David Pearson, Deputy Dean for Education at HYMS, who collected the award in Prague, said: “We were thrilled to receive an AMEE Aspire to Excellence award in the category of social accountability, especially during our tenth anniversary year.
“The award was made on the basis of HYMS’ commitment to help develop excellent healthcare in our region, though high quality education, support for service and locally relevant research initiatives.
“The ASPIRE panel commented particularly on the balance of our educational programmes, with a high proportion of clincial placements in community and primary care settings (at 33 per cent ahead of any other UK school) and our early successes with HYMS’ alumni now taking up substantive medical jobs in our local health care economy.”
Other award winner included the Northern Ontario School of Medicine, Canada and the Southern Illinois School in the United States, whilst medical schools from Malaysia and Pakistan were also commended.