Gina Hadley BSc (Hons), BMBCh, MRCP (2010), MSc (Oxon.), DPhil
Honorary Clinical Lecturer in Neurology
Biography
Dr Gina Hadley has been a Clinical Tutor at Harris Manchester College since 2008 and Associate Medical Tutor with responsibility for Medical Students at the College since 2017. She is an Honorary Clinical Lecturer in Neurology and undertaking a year-long Clinical Fellowship in Multiple Sclerosis with an emphasis on managing patients with long term conditions in the context of multidisciplinary team working. She has recently completed an American Academy of Neurology Medical Education Research Fellowship, the first time that this has been awarded outside of North America.
Dr Hadley started her career in Pharmacology, gaining a first class honours degree from the University of Edinburgh. This included a year on exchange to Queen’s University in Canada, taking courses predominantly in neuropharmacology and neuroanatomy stimulating an interest in neurodegeneration and its lack of treatment options. Following a year of working and volunteering in healthcare systems in the UK, Australia and Paraguay, she studied medicine on the Graduate Entry Programme at Oxford. During her time as a student she published systematic reviews with the Pain Research Unit and gained Wellcome Funding for her elective at the Kenya Medical Research Institute (KEMRI). She began her Clinical training on the Academic Foundation Programme in Oxford, working for Professor Alastair Buchan looking at neuroprotection in stroke. During her Academic Clinical Fellowship she was second author on a Nature Medicine paper describing hamartin as a novel endogenous neuroprotectant. This led to a DPhil in endogenous neuroprotection. She also completed a Masters in Evidence Based Healthcare resulting in a Cochrane Review of Transdermal Fentanyl in Cancer Pain.
Medical Education
Dr Hadley has over 10 years’ experience teaching at a University level. She has a Post Graduate Certificate in Medical Education from the University of Cambridge and is currently undertaking her Post Graduate Diploma . She lectures both on the Graduate Entry Course and for the Clinical School at the University of Oxford. She is further developing a programme called ‘Expert Patient Tutors’ (EPTs). This involves stable patients with neurological disorders such as Parkinson’s disease or Multiple Sclerosis teaching medical students communication and examination skills. This has resulted in the development of a Toolkit to extend the role of EPTs to other hospital specialities and General Practice. She was also awarded an Educator Development Award from the Association for the Study of Medical Education to travel to Quinnipiac University, Connecticut to further refine the Expert Patient Tutor Programme for North American Programmes.
Another initiative Dr Hadley is involved in is: ‘Looking, Seeing and Understanding Neurology: Developing medical skills in a non-clinical environment’. She delivers a lecture teaching an approach neurological diseases in a creative way to help consolidate key concepts relevant to core curriculum using artists that both possess and depict neurological conditions. It also introduces a session at the Ashmolean Museum in collaboration with Dr Jim Harris. This programme, introduces students to art as a vehicle to learn basic principles of neurology, that is, detailed observation and precise communication via object-based learning. Students are presented museum artefacts and asked to describe what they observe. The ultimate aim is to dispel myths, confirm beliefs and combat neurophobia.
Dr Hadley is working with Professor Josh Hordern, Dr Marie Allitt (also at HMC), Professor Gabriele De Luca, Dr Kate Saunders and Dr Jim Harris on ‘Advancing Medical Professionalism: Integrating Humanities Teaching in the University of Oxford’s Medical School’. This is supported by the Wellcome Institutional Strategic Support Fund. Their objective is to research, design, implement and evaluate a completely novel curriculum for the combined Clinical Neurosciences and Psychiatry block, with humanities-based professionalism teaching as a core thread, for implementation in 2020/2021.