A senior lecturer in orthodontics has just become a senior fellow with the Higher Education Academy.
Dr Ross Hobson, of Newcastle University, is a clinical academic and has been involved in dental education since he graduated in 1984, notably in curricula development.
He has been influential at national and international levels.
Senior fellowship recognises outstanding champions of teaching and learning in higher education and is part of the Academy’s professional recognition scheme.
The scheme is part of the Academy’s commitment to raising the status of teaching.
Ross has strived to improve the student educational experience, integrating clinically relevant material into basic science teaching.
He believes strongly that the development and provision of the learning environment for student and staff is essential, and that empowering staff to develop and try new methods is vital to ensure a positive and vibrant culture of quality enhancement to the benefit of both.
Responsible for undergraduate orthodontic education in Newcastle, Ross has developed aims and outcomes that have subsequently been accepted as the standard in both the UK and Europe.
In 1999, he was invited to join the early working groups of a European Thematic Network Project which involved becoming part of the teams that visited dental schools across Europe to act as friendly peer reviewers of dental education to help collaboration and dissemination of best practice across Europe.
In a later part of this project, Ross undertook the role of rapporteur and secretary to the working group on quality assurance and benchmarking for European Dental Schools.
This involved working with colleagues across Europe in establishing best practice in quality standards and subject benchmarking.
As a result of this Ross was asked to lead the international working group on the development of global quality assurance as part of the Global congress on dental education held in Dublin in 2007.
In 2007/8, Ross developed the first UK integrated PhD programme in clinical orthodontics, combining clinical specialist training in orthodontics with research.
The programme is just five years long due to its unique merging of clinically based research with the taught components of the MSc. It gained a waiting list within three months
Over many years, Ross has used his positions with organisations such as LTSN-01, the British Dental Association, the British Orthodontic Society and the Association for Dental Education for Europe to continually challenge and improve dental education. He has published extensively.
