Joanne Harris

Jo graduated from Charing Cross and Westminster Medical School and has worked in both hospital practice and primary care. She held a partnership in general practice and now works clinically as a sessional GP.

Jo developed an early interest in Medical Education and has been training medical undergraduates for 20 years both nationally and in Singapore. Jo was the Deputy Head of the Medical School at Imperial College London for five years before being appointed Dean of Medicine at the University of Buckingham in September 2019.

She has a particular interest in medical professionalism as it relates to Fitness to Practise and is a founding member of the UK Council for Teachers of Professionalism. She is a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Educators, Principal Fellow of the Higher Education Academy and in 2016 was awarded an Imperial College President’s Award for Excellence in Teaching. Jo sits on the Medical Schools Council Assessment Alliance reference panel, standard-setting examination questions for the forthcoming national Medical Licensing Assessment.

In 2013, Jo completed a Master’s in Medical Education where her thesis explored the near-peer teaching of communications skills to final-year medical students. She is currently following a professional Doctorate in Education (EdD) at the Institute of Education, UCL where her thesis centres on how cultural factors affect the professional identity formation of medical students. She has published on a range of topics in Medical Education and regularly attends national and international Medical Education conferences to present aspects of her research.

Now Dean of the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, Jo is looking forward to strengthening the output of the medical school and developing innovative Allied Health courses with an opportunity to explore interprofessional learning.