A Swansea University expert researching how to improve teaching skills among healthcare professionals has won a travel scholarship from The Worshipful Livery Company of Wales, which will allow him to share his findings internationally.
Dr Ross Davey’s research focuses on improving how future doctors and healthcare professionals are trained to teach.
At Swansea University’s Faculty of Medicine, Health and Life Sciences, he helps lead a programme where medical students work as senior teaching assistants, supporting their peers’ learning of anatomy, physiology and clinical skills.
The award from The Company to Ross followed a competition open to Swansea University researchers who are in the early stages of their career.
As part of his Masters degree in medical education, Ross developed and tested a new training programme to give early-career educators strong teaching skills from the outset.
At present, there is no standard approach across the UK for training clinical educators at this stage, resulting in inconsistent practices. His work seeks to change this by promoting clear, evidence-based guidelines to ensure consistent, high-quality teaching across the healthcare education sector.
Ross has been invited to present his work at AMEE 2025 in Barcelona, one of the world’s leading medical education conferences. This gives him the opportunity to share Swansea’s model internationally and build collaborations to help ensure the next generation of clinical educators in Wales have the expertise and confidence to train the healthcare professionals of the future.
Dr Ross Davey of Swansea University Medical School said:
“I am honoured to receive funding from the Worshipful Livery Company of Wales to present my research, which I completed at Swansea University as an academic doctor. Presenting my thesis at this prestigious conference will not only help me develop as an educator and scholar, but will also allow me to collaborate with colleagues from across the world, working to improve training and support for clinical educators at the very start of their careers. I look forward to using these discussions to help develop a structured training process that can raise the quality of clinical teaching in Wales and beyond.”
The Worshipful Livery Company of Wales was founded in 1993 and one of its aims is to “promote education, science, technology and the arts in Wales”. This it achieves by helping young people throughout Wales to develop their talents and skills by means of an annual awards programme of scholarships and bursaries to students in schools, universities and technical colleges, as well as to apprentices and young people in the armed forces.
The Master of The Company, Henry Gilbert, said:
“This timely opportunity for Ross illustrates how such valuable and groundbreaking work can make a vital contribution to medical education in Wales.
One of The Company’s aims is to encourage and support students to progress with a specific project. We raise funds through various charitable events and also by reaching out, not only to our Liverymen for financial support, but also to the wider community in Wales. We encourage like-minded Welsh organisations interested in promoting education, science, technology and the arts in Wales to support our activities.
We are delighted to be able to support Ross in taking this project forward and sharing his important research work with a wider international and influential audience.”
