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.
Roger’s is committed to education in it widest sense. He established and 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. In July 2011 he became the first Imperial academic to receive a Higher Education Academy National Teaching Fellowship Award.
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. Key research concepts include Hybrid Simulation (the combination of professional actors with inanimate models to create realistic clinical encounters), Distributed Simulation (low-cost, portable yet highly convincing environments such as the ‘inflatable operating theatre’) and Sequential Simulation (concatenated sequences that model clinical pathways from multiple points of view).
Roger publishes widely and speaks frequently at national and international conferences. Current and recent grants include EPSRC, ESRC, AHRC, Wellcome Trust and HENWL. He has a wide range of professional interests and is especially interested in collaborative research at the intersections between traditional disciplinary boundaries (http://tinyurl.com/TEDMed-Live-2013). Current work is exploring synergies between clinical care, biomedical science, art, humanities and performance. 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). He is working on innovative projects with the Science Museum, Wellcome Trust and Royal Institution as well as a number of major science festivals.
Roger’s current focus is the theory and practice of engagement. He is committed to outreach and public engagement, leading numerous high profile Festivals and venues to bring simulation into the public domain and highlight both the patients’ and clinicians’ perspectives. The recent award of a prestigious 2 year Wellcome Trust Engagement Fellowship provides a unique opportunity for him to develop engagement and simulation science within and beyond Imperial.
Email: r.kneebone@imperial.ac.uk
