The MB BS course is organised by John Matthews, the premedical course, the BMedSci course and those to MSc students by David Appleton, (except that Denise Howel is in charge of the MSc in Public Health), and the course for PhD students by Janine Bishop.
Premedical and predental course: Normal and binomial distributions, confidence intervals, paired and unpaired t tests, contingency tables, regression, causation, study design, interpretation of medical time series, library project; graphs and calculations with MINITAB.
MB BS: Measurement error, variability, distributions.
Bachelor of Medical Science course: Normal distribution, confidence intervals, pared and unpaired t tests, regression, contingency tables, several 2 x 2 tables, non-parametric tests, one-way ANOVA, blocked and factorial designs, power calculations, sampling methods, design of clinical trials, critique of a published article; graphs and calculations with MINITAB.
Premedical and predental course: terms 1 and 2.
MB BS course: year 1, semesters 1 and 2.
BMedSci course: this course starts in the September following either year 2 or
year 4 of the MB BS or BDS course: the statistics element is given alongside a
research methods course in the first month.
Premedical and predental course: 26 half-hour videos (Against All Odds), practicals on questionnaire design and clinical trial design, seven two-hour MINITAB practicals.
MB BS and BDS courses: 3 lectures and 2 90-minute practicals.
BMedSci course: 20 lectures, five 90-minute MINITAB practicals; students are also allocated statistical supervisors for their project work throughout the rest of the year.
Premedical and predental course: 12
MB BS: 150
BMedSci: 40
Three full-time medical statisticians cover the premedical and BMedSci courses between them. It is anticipated that the other seven statisticians in the department will all be involved with the MB BS course.
Premedical and predental course: in-course assessment of two practicals; one two-hour written paper.
MB BS none.
BMedSci: after the initial course students are required to write a protocol of the project they are about to undertake; this is assessed by a medical statistician. Their written examination includes a 3-hour critique of a paper.
A substantial amount (60 hours) of statistics (with Epi Info) is included in a course given jointly to MSc students in Public Health Medicine, Community Child Health and Community Dental Health.
Other MSc students (in for example Occupational Hygiene or Operative Dentistry) and PhD students attend one of the two courses which the Department of Medical Statistics mounts for postgraduates in the Faculty of Medicine. The first of these lasts 28 hours, the second 28 hours. There is also a course of 5 one-hour sessions where a statistician will answer queries from any postgraduate or member of staff who has read specific chapters of Martin Bland's An Introduction to Medical Statistics. Other courses are geared to the examinations of particular Colleges, eg FFARCS, MRCPsych, MFOM, FRCR.
Dr D R Appleton, The University of Newcastle upon Tyne, Department of Medical Statistics, The Medical School, Framlington Place, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE2 4HH.
Tel: 0191 222
7256
Fax: 0191 222 6442
email: David.Appleton@newcastle.ac.uk