Tim Dornan, PhD
Function: Professor of Medical Education
Department: Department of Educational Development and Research, Faculty of Health, Medicine and Life Sciences, Maastricht University
Email: t.dornan@maastrichtuniversity.nl
Tim Dornan studied medicine and history & philosophy of science at Cambridge and qualified as a doctor from Oxford in 1975. After residency education in Oxford and Nottingham, he obtained a clinical research doctorate from Oxford and spent a post-doctoral year in Seattle, USA. After completing his clinical training in Nottingham, he became a consultant internist and endocrinologist in Manchester.
As Undergraduate Dean at Hope Hospital, he helped design and implement Manchester’s innovative integrated undergraduate medical curriculum. After that, he trained as an educationalist, completing a masters degree in 2002 and a PhD on topic of clinical workplace learning in 2006, both at Maastricht University. He headed the University of Manchester’s medical education research group.
His interests include clinical workplace learning and the use of IT to support it, social learning theories, and qualitative research methodology. He has developed an Experience based learning (ExBL) model of how medical students learn in workplaces. He is a UK National Teaching Fellow and visiting Professor at Peninsula Medical School.
Tim joined the Maastricht group in 2010, where he contributes to graduate education and fosters collaboration with other education research groups worldwide. He teaches qualitative methodology and social learning theories. His current research is exploring constructivist approaches to evidence synthesis in the world of medical education and examining how the ExBL model can be translated into practice.
He is married with two adult children, sails, and is an active orchestral musician.
