Stuart Porter: my career high

Earlier this year I acted as medical director of studies at the medical summer programme at the University of Cambridge. I led a team of Cambridge fellows, Cambridge medical undergraduates and consultants for medical students from Nan Jing in China. 

 

The Cambridge programme covers the physiology of pain and current research developments in analgesia and cancer. There was a particular focus on the unusual neuro-physiology and genetic adaptations of Heterocephalus glaber – a cold blooded mammal in which cancer is  unknown, and which is acid insensitive and hypoxia-resistant and may therefore provide keys to future cancer, analgesia and stroke research. The programme also delivered tutorials in anatomy, pharmacology, embryology, health psychology and ethics.

 

A colleague Louise Henstock gave a well-received session on managing patients who are critically ill. The students enjoyed the dynamic teaching and exposure to Cambridge academia and we generated interest among students wishing to come back for Masters and PhDs.

 

The experience of lecturing at the University of Cambridge has been truly unforgettable and humbling – I lectured one morning in a 14th century building and then presented in the lecture theatre where the discovery of DNA was announced by Watson and Crick in1953. As a young boy I was always mesmerised by the Christmas lectures at the Royal Institution and to lecture in a similar environment was beyond my wildest dreams. 

 

After graduating from the Manchester School of Physiotherapy in 1987, I worked in rheumatology and also represented my country as physiotherapist for the England women’s football team. Academic life began in 1996 and I gained my PhD in 2009. I am an internationally published author with Elsevier and an external examiner at the universities of Liverpool and Bradford. I owe these experiences to being a chartered physiotherapist and now a university lecturer. 

 

I still have an undiminished passion for teaching and my physiotherapy students are among the most talented and motivated people that I have ever met.