Professor of Surgical Education

Roger Kneebone trained first as a general and trauma surgeon, working both in the UK and in Southern Africa. After finishing his specialist training, he decided to become a general practitioner and joined a large group practice in Trowbridge, Wiltshire. In the 1990s he pioneered an innovative national training programme for minor surgery within primary care, based around intensive workshops using simulated tissue models and a computer-based learning program. In 2003, Roger left his practice to join Imperial.

Much of Roger’s current research focuses on simulation. He leads an unorthodox and creative research group, bringing together clinicians, educationalists, computer scientists, psychologists, social scientists, design engineers and experts from the visual and performing arts. Current themes include Hybrid Simulation (the combination of professional actors with inanimate models to create realistic clinical encounters) and Distributed Simulation (low-cost, portable yet highly convincing environments such as the ‘inflatable operating theatre’). Roger has recently been exploring how simulation can be used to recreate tacit and embodied surgical practices from the recent past. http://tinyurl.com/BMJ-surgical-reenactment

Roger holds grants from the EPSRC, ESRC, AHRC, Wellcome Trust and London Deanery. He has a wide range of professional interests and is especially interested in collaborative research at the intersections between traditional disciplinary boundaries. Current work is exploring synergies between clinical care, biomedical science, art, humanities and performance.

Roger publishes widely, speaks frequently at national and international conferences and serves on the Editorial Board of Simulation in Healthcare. He is deeply committed to outreach and public engagement, and is working on innovative projects with the Science Museum, Wellcome Trust and major science festivals. In July 2011 he received a Higher Education Academy National Teaching Fellowship Award and in 2012 was awarded a two year Wellcome Trust Engagement Fellowship.

 Roger leads the UK’s only Masters in Education (MEd) in Surgical Education, which started in October 2005.  This challenging programme builds on educational theory and practice to explore relationships between the biomedical sciences, the craft of surgery and the humanities and social sciences.

Roger's 'simulated theatre' videos

• Health Check: Blow-up 'igloo' trains doctors (BBC website, October 2010)

 

Health Check: Blow-up 'igloo' trains doctors (BBC website, October 2010) - click to view

 

 

• Inflatable 'operating theatre' (BBC website, June 2009)

The Art of Surgery encounters and connections

medicine