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New chair appointed to the Postgraduate Medical Education and Training Board

  • Published date:
    10 May 2005

Sir Liam Donaldson, Chief Medical Officer for England, today announced the appointment of Professor Peter Rubin as the new chair of the Postgraduate Medical Education and Training Board (PMETB).

Sir Liam said: 'I am very pleased to announce the appointment of Peter Rubin as chair of PMETB. In establishing the new Board we set ourselves a tough goal. I am sure that Peter's vision and expertise will contribute greatly both to the launch of the Board in September this year and in meeting the challenges ahead. Peter's track record in chairing the General Medical Council's Education Committee demonstrates clearly his powers of leadership and his dedication to delivering the highest quality medical education.

'He will have the full support of the UK Health Departments in his new role.

'I should also like to pay tribute to Peter Simpson who has acted as chair for the past ten months. It is impossible to underestimate the contribution his wise and determined leadership has made in readying the Board for its launch.'

Andrew Foster, Department of Health Director of Workforce said: 'The job of chairing PMETB is not an easy one. The chair has not only to deliver an effective new organisation to a tight timetable but also to develop PMETB as a central and authoritative voice in medical education and training. I value Peter's understanding of the major issues, like Modernising Medical Careers, and I intend to develop a strong working relationship with him in his new role.'

Professor Graham Winyard, chair of the Conference of Postgraduate Medical Deans of the UK said: 'I welcome Peter's appointment. He is a very well-respected figure in medical education. His strategic vision will I know help to build a closer partnership between the regulation of undergraduate and postgraduate medical education.  I look forward to working with him.'

Peter Rubin said: 'I am delighted and honoured to have been given the opportunity of chairing the PMETB.  We have a once in a generation opportunity to lead change in postgraduate medical education for the benefit of both trainees and patients and I relish the challenge of helping to make this happen'.

Notes to editor

1. PMETB was set up in 2003 as a new competent authority for postgraduate medical education. Its main task so far has been to build its staff, organisation and processes to be ready to take up its legal functions in September this year.

2. Dr Peter Simpson, PMETB's deputy chair and also President of the Royal College of Anaesthetists, has acted as chair since last summer following the resignation of Professor Clive Morton as the Board's first chair.

3. We are working with Professor Rubin to decide on the best date for him to take up his new duties. He  will continue as Chair of the GMC's Education Committee. His term of office as PMETB Chair will run until 2008.

4. Peter Rubin is 56 and grew up in Cornwall where he attended Redruth Grammar School before studying Medicine at Cambridge and the Oxford Clinical School.  He trained in general medicine and clinical pharmacology and was an American Heart Association Fellow at Stanford and a Wellcome Trust Senior Fellow in Clinical Science in Glasgow.  Peter has been Professor of Therapeutics at the University of Nottingham and an honorary consultant physician at the Queen's Medical Centre since 1987. 

Peter was Dean of the Nottingham Medical School from 1997 - 2003 and during this time led the development of a new, graduate-entry medical school from concept to completion.  He is chair of the University's Vet School Project Group, leading the development of the first new Vet School in the UK for over half a century.

He has been chair of the GMC Education Committee since 2002 where has led several major policy developments: a shift in the requirements of undergraduate medical education, emphasising competencies to be achieved rather than process; modernising and professionalising the quality assurance of medical schools; conducting the most far-reaching review of the PRHO year since its inception 50 years ago, introducing assessed competencies for the first time; developing and publishing guidance on Continuing Professional Development; establishing a Research Board to conduct long-term studies related to the impact of GMC guidance; identifying and developing future policies in major areas - e.g. national licensing exam; student registration by the GMC.

Peter is also a Board Member of the Higher Education Funding Council for England, on whose behalf he is currently co-chair of the Joint Implementation Group overseeing the expansion of dental student numbers.

5. Media enquiries ONLY to Sally Aldous on 020 7210 5230. All other enquries to the DH public enquries line on 020 7210 4850

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