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Professor Angela Kubacki

Head of Medical School Admissions and Head of Clinical and Communication Skills

Professor Angela Kubacki

About Research

Email: Angela.Kubacki@stmarys.ac.uk

Biography

I have two main roles within the School of Medicine. I am the Head of Medical School Admissions, leading on our admissions strategy and policy in the School of Medicine. We aim to recruit and select our first cohort based on academic excellence, motivation for a career in healthcare and alignment to the St Mary's values and those of the NHS and General Medical Council. I am also the Head of Clinical and Communication Skills and will be leading the curriculum development and teaching of clinical and communication skills for our students.

Background

I have over 25 years of evidence-based, research-led teaching experience in UK medical education. Prior to my appointment as Professor of Medical Education and Clinical Communication at St Mary’s, I was based at City St George’s, University of London, where I was Head of Clinical Communication, managing a team of 10 clinical academic lecturers in designing, delivering, assessing and evaluating the clinical communication curriculum across the MBBS 4 year and 5 year programmes.

I held senior leadership positions, including Associate Dean for Admissions (2014-2022) and Dean for Student Conduct at Compliance (2022-2025) at St George’s, University of London. I was a member of Senate and was leading within the AI Accelerator and Change Committee as co-Chair of the Generative AI Upskilling steering group to ensure ethical and effective use of Gen AI across City St George’s.

I have expertise in designing and delivering medical and healthcare education to a variety of healthcare professionals and trainees across undergraduate medical schools and within postgraduate deaneries. I am the lead educator for the FutureLearn MOOC 'Developing Clinical Empathy: Making a Difference in Patient Care'. This highly rated, open-access course is utilised across the globe, as well as being embedded into medical school curricula. This work led to collaborations with other healthcare programmes, including dentistry at Trinity College, Dublin, where I was a Visiting Professor.

Awards

I was recognised by Advance HE for outstanding work in advancing clinical education and student partnership when I was awarded a National Teaching Fellowship in 2024.

In 2025, I received three Educational Excellence Awards from City St George’s, recognising my sustained commitment to working in partnership with students, my collaborative work for meaningful curriculum enhancement through staff-student partnership and multi-role collaboration and as co-leader of the Academic Integrity Transformation Project, for my inclusive, collegial approach to the enhancement of policy and practice.

Widening access

I led on significant strategy change for widening access as Associate Dean for Admissions, resulting in a values-based and contextual admissions policy, increasing the number of students from disadvantaged and under-represented groups applying to and selected into medicine and healthcare programmes.

My significant experience in Admissions also led to my election to the board of the MSC Selection Alliance and Co-chair of its MMI Expert Group and my contribution as an author in the 2024 Medical Schools Council report 'Fostering Potential. My work and research on selection methodology and the use of multiple mini interviews (MMIs) led me to co-lead the development of the content and pedagogical design of another FutureLearn MOOC 'Healthcare Selection and Recruitment: Design and Deliver Effective Multiple Mini Interviews (MMIs)', which launched in May 2020 and purposefully included the use of remote MMIs, to coincide with the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic restrictions.

This saw participation from a wider, international audience engaging with the subject, creating a rich learning experience. Through the MOOC, I was able to share my expertise nationally and internationally with practitioners and universities.

I also bring experience of having worked within an international partnership between St George’s Medical School and the University of Nicosia, Cyprus, supporting the recruitment of international cohorts and was responsible for overseeing admissions processes, governance and quality assurance, working with the GMC to ensure approval and accreditation of the partnership.

I am committed to values-based selection and ensuring our graduates will be compassionate, human-centred clinicians and I am extremely excited to be the first Head of Admissions and Head of Clinical and Communication Skills for the School of Medicine at St Mary’s.

Hobbies and interests

I am a natural collaborator and I enjoy working across teams to bring people together, both at work and within my local community. Outside of work, I enjoy spending time with my family, and as we are all music enthusiasts, we attend a lot of live music gigs, typically punk and indie rock bands.

I'm a huge advocate for outdoor group exercise and I attend my 6am Bootcamp class religiously to keep my mind and body strong.

Qualifications and accreditations

  • Advance HE: National Teaching Fellowship Award Winner (NTFA) 2024-25
  • Trinity College Dublin School of Dental Science: Visiting Professor (2022-2023)
  • Advance HE: Awarded Senior Fellowship (SFHEA) 2020
  • Imperial College London: Postgraduate Certificate of Advanced Study in Learning and Teaching (CASLAT) 2004
  • University of Southampton: MSc in Health Psychology (1998-1999)
  • University College London: Affiliate Student: Departments of Pharmacology and Psychology (1996-1997)
  • Smith College, Northampton, MA. USA: B. A. in Psychology with Neuroscience (1994-1998).

Membership of professional bodies

  • Membership of The Association of National Teaching Fellows (ANTF)
  • Senior Fellowship of the Higher Education Academy (SFHEA)
  • Associate Fellow of British Psychological Society (AFBPs)
  • Chartered Health Psychologist (Division of Health Psychology, BPS)
  • Registered Practitioner Psychologist, Health and Care Professions Council (HCPC)
  • Member, The Association for the Study of Medical Education (ASME)
  • Member, The International Associate for Health Professions Education (AMEE)
  • Board Member, Medical Schools Council Selection Alliance (MSCSA)
  • Chair, MSCSA MMI Expert Group
  • University Clinical Aptitude Test (UCAT) Consortium Member
  • Founding Member, UK Council for Clinical Communication Teaching in Undergraduate Medical Education (UKCCC).

Research

Research profile

Publications

  • Kumwenda, B., Kubacki, A., Lynch, B., & Dowell, J. The Predictive Validity of Multiple Mini Interviews for Medical School Performance and Postgraduate Training: A Multi-site and Multi-cohort Study. 2025. In progress
  • Anishchuk, S., Mac Giolla, Phadraig C., Roche, C., Kubacki, A., Sullivan, D., & Howell, Y. ResiliDents: Development and Evaluation of Resilience in Dental Undergraduate Education. Eur J Dent Educ 2025;0:1-11. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1111/eje.13094
  • Medical Schools Council. Fostering Potential: 10 years on from Selecting for Excellence. London: Medical Schools Council. Dec 2024. Available at: https://www.medschools.ac.uk/
  • Callwood A, Harris J, Gillam L, Roberts, S, Kubacki, A, Christidis, A, & Tiffin, P. Cross- sectional evaluation of an asynchronous multiple mini- interview (MMI) in selection to health professions training programmes with 10 principles for fairness built-in. BMJ Open 2023;0:e074440. doi:10.1136/ bmjopen-2023-074440
  • Callwood, A., Gilliam, L., Christidis, A., Doulton, J., Harris, J., Coleman, M., Kubacki, A., Tiffin, P., Roberts, K., Tarmey, D., Dalton, D, & Valentin, V. Feasibility of an automated interview grounded in Multiple Mini Interview (MMI) methodology for selection into the health professions: an international multi-methods evaluation. BMJ Open 2022;12:e050394. doi: 10.1136/bmjopen-2021-050394
  • Anishchuk, S., Kubacki, A., Howell, Y., Van Harten, MT., Yarascavitch, C., & Mac Giolla, Phadraig C. Can a Virtual Learning Module Foster Empathy in Undergraduate Dental Students? Eur J Dent Educ 2022;00:1-8. https://doi.org/10.1111/eje.12783
  • Apampa, A., Kubacki, A., Ojha, U., Xiang, J. Challenges in widening participation outreach: Is enough being done to tackle under-representation of low-income students in medicine? Adv Med Educ Pract 2019 Nov1;10:917-923. doi: 10.2147/AMEP.S211895.
  • Zibarras, L., Patterson, F., Holmes, J., Flaxman, C., & Kubacki, A. An exploration of applicant perceptions of asynchronous video MMIs in applicant selection. MedEd Publish; 2018 Vol 7 Issue 4. Paper No: 64. https://doi.org/10.15694/mep.2018.0000285.1
  • Joekes, K, Noble, LM, Kubacki, AM, Potts, HWW, & Lloyd, M. Does the inclusion of ‘professional development’ teaching improve medical students’ communication skills? BMC Med Educ. 2011; 11: 41.
  • Nestel, D, Tierney, T, Kubacki, A, & Muir, E. Learning to talk with patients: feasibility of a volunteer simulated patient programme for first-year medical students. International Journal of Clinical Skills 2008; 2:2
  • Nestel, D, Tierney, T & Kubacki, A. Creating authentic simulated patient roles: working with volunteers. Med Educ. 2008; 42(11): 1122.
  • Noble LM, Kubacki A, Martin J, Lloyd M. The effect of professional skills training on patient-centredness and confidence in communicating with patients. Med Educ. 2007;41:432–40.

Media enquiries

For media enquiries, please contact our Press Office Team by emailing press.office@stmarys.ac.uk.