Fire and Critical Edge
1990s
1990
MB/PhD programme established under Founding Director Professor Tim Cox.
1992
Addenbrooke’s becomes an NHS Trust.
1993
Cambridge Institute of Public Health opens.
1994
First edition of ‘Clinical Clerking’ published, a pocketbook guide for clinical students by Dr Paul Siklos and Professor Carol Seymour-Richards.
1996
Computer Teaching Laboratory opens in the School.
1996
Calgary-Cambridge model introduced.
1996
Wolfson Brain Imaging Centre established.
1996
Chair of General Practice established.
1996
Christopher Allen appointed Dean.
1997
General Practice and Primary Care Research Unit established under the direction of the University’s inaugural Professor of Primary Care Ann Louise Kinmonth.
1997
Public Health Genomics Unit, later PHG Foundation, established by alumnus and philanthropist Dr Ron Zimmern as the UK’s first centre for public health genetics.
1998
Cambridge Institute for Medical Research (CIMR) established by its Founding Director Professor Jenefer Blackwell.
Innovations in Education and Research
The School emerged from the 1980s with vim and vigour: ‘determined to survive the new decade with flying colours and in some style whatever the weather’, said Clinical Dean Professor Tom Sherwood, at the end of 1990. ‘That mix of practice and scholarship [is] unique to medical schools. If such schools and their universities did not exist, they would have to be reinvented, for the healthy as well as the sick, for the young and old, for the country in short.’ The 1990s brought renewed spirit and innovation to the School, particularly in its approach to teaching. With the guidance of Sir Keith Peters, the School introduced the MB/PhD programme – a first in Europe – to promote scientific discovery and sustained academic development in contemporary medicine and clinical practice. After the Cambridge MB/PhD programme was established under its Founding Director Professor Tim Cox, similar integrated programmes were set up at other British medical schools. Now with over 200 graduates, the Cambridge MB/PhD enables the translation of original research into tangible benefits for society: Cambridge MB/PhD alumni who are practising physicians have joined more than 20 different clinical specialties, from Neurology to General Practice.
The School’s staircase in the 1990s. It was designed as a nod to the DNA spiral and Cambridge’s role in discovering the structure of DNA.
Image: Cambridge Health Authority.
Reflecting the spirit of a strong science-based education that had been the driving force in Cambridge since the founding of the Department of Physiology by Foster in the latter part of the 19th century, I decided to establish an integrated MB/PhD programme to give exceptionally gifted students an opportunity to undertake research early in their careers.
Sir Keith Peters, Regius Professor of Physic 1987-2005
Reflecting the spirit of a strong science-based education that had been the driving force in Cambridge since the founding of the Department of Physiology by Foster in the latter part of the 19th century, I decided to establish an integrated MB/PhD programme to give exceptionally gifted students an opportunity to undertake research early in their careers.
Sir Keith Peters, Regius Professor of Physic 1987-2005
Ahead of his retirement, Sherwood commissioned a plaque from the Cardozo Kindersley Workshop in Cambridge to commemorate the School’s 20th anniversary in 1996. Sherwood created a fitting motto – Fire & Critical Edge – deriving from Karl Popper’s view of science as ideas first, then critical experiments. The carved Welsh slate, painted and gilded, welcomes faculty and students as they enter the School.
By the mid-1990s, the School had become a close-knit social community, with student pantomimes, a revived musical society, pool matches and table football games.
Simultaneously, this decade saw the School cement its distinct research ethos. It was during Sir Keith Peters’ tenure that the ethos of research became multi-disciplinary and translational.
The opening of the Cambridge Institute for Medical Research (CIMR) in 1998 was a watershed moment: it increased the research laboratory space available to the School by 50%. Since its inception, CIMR has attracted and nurtured unique collaborations of laboratory and clinician scientists, enabling them to exploit rapid developments in molecular and cell biology for the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of human disease.
The Fire and Critical Edge plaque at the entrance of the building was commissioned by Professor Sherwood for the School’s 20th anniversary.
Cambridge, Calgary and Communication
Effective communication between doctor and patient is a core clinical skill, but one that was not taught systematically in medical schools until the 1990s.
Dr Jonathan Silverman, a Cambridge GP, has pioneered clinical communication skills since 1988. In 1993 he went on sabbatical to Calgary, Canada where – together with Professor Suzanne Kurtz – he developed an evidence-based curriculum for teaching clinical communication skills classes that were initially delivered in the School’s basement. For Silverman, the core of clinical communication is translating the medicine and working with patients to ensure they understand the diagnosis and are receptive to the recommended treatment.
Silverman set up the UK Council for Clinical Communication in Undergraduate Medical Education. Through that body, medical schools have established Professors of clinical communication.
Today, the Calgary-Cambridge model is the widely-accepted standard and implemented by more than 70% of UK medical schools. The School’s Clinical Reasoning and Communication Skills (CRCS) course – with an international reputation for excellence – has its home in the Deakin Centre. That building is named in honour of Tony Deakin CBE, former chairman of Addenbrooke’s NHS Trust.
The 1998 edition of ‘Skills for Communicating with Patients’ by Jonathan Silverman, Suzanne Kurtz and Juliet Draper.