Dr Shehla Baig is an active clinician and educator at St George's and influential at national level in influencing the aims and purpose of medical education in the UK. She is fluent in the exceptional breadth of approaches required for curriculum design in medical education, encompassing scholarly, education, technical, scientific, humanistic, professional and leadership discourses and part of stakeholder groups that influence this debate nationally. She is a General Practitioner at Balham Park Surgery, Reader in Medical Education at St George's, and an Education Associate for the General Medical Council. She is currently Director of MBBS Development and a member of the Senior Education team for MBBS at St George's, University of London.
Shehla qualified from St Mary's, University of London in 1993. She continued her interest in history and the arts by undertaking a BSc in the History of Medicine at the Wellcome Institute at University College, London in 1990. After completing her pre-registration and a further year in obstetrics and gynaecology, she joined St George's Hospital as a General Practice trainee 1995, and thrived in the clinical academic atmosphere that St George's offered. She completed her GP training in 1998 at Morden Hall Medical Centre and became a local GP, returning to St George's in 1999 to take up a joint clinical and academic training scheme for 1 year. She has continued to work jointly in clinical practice and medical education in the local community and St George's since that time.
In 2000, she was part of the small team of academics and doctors that set up the Graduate Entry Programme, the first graduate only medical degree in the UK. Since that time, she has played key roles in programme level curriculum design and quality assurance at local, national and international level.
Awards and Scholarships
- 2020 Principals Prize for Staff-Student partnership, St George's University
- 2020 Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy
- 2004 Member of the Institute of Learning and Teaching
- 1989 Wellcome Trust Scholarship
- 1987 McCowen Scholarship, St Mary's, University of London
External appointments
- 2020-date Education leads Advisory Group, Medical Schools Council
- 2019 Changing Face of Medicine, round table member
- 2016-2018 Review of Tomorrows Doctors 2015, General Medical Council
- 2012-date Education Associate, General Medical Council
- 2013-2016 External Examiner, Liverpool University
Baig S, Nicolaou S, Lawrence D, Myers J, , et al. 2020, 'Student learning about UK health services in a cross-border curriculum partnership; the London-Cyprus experience', MedEdPublish, 9, [1], 58, https://doi.org/10.15694/mep.2020.000058.1
Baig S., Hilton S. Graduate Entry in Medicine: Opportunities of General Practice. Education for Primary Care 14(3):267-271, Aug 2003
Ogden J. , Baig S., Earnshaw G., Elkington H., Lindsay J., Nandy S. What is health? Where GP’s and patients’ worlds collide. Patient Education and Counselling. 45 (4) 265-9, Dec 2001.
Shehla began her formal career in education in 1999 after completing the London Academic Training Scheme, a work-based academic development programme that required active educational research, partnership and teaching activity to complete. Two projects early in her career involved international partnerships-one with the Institute of Family Medicine in St Petersburg and as a second as a visiting lecturer for Masters in Primary Care at the University of Brunei. This early experience has given her a life-long interest in work-based learning and international dimensions of medical education.
Under Professor Peter McCrorie's leadership, she played a key role in the collaborative design and implementation of the Graduate Entry Programme (GEP) in 2000, undertaking multiple roles including module convenor, GP course organiser, head of year and responsible examiner. She has led curriculum review at St Georges since 2006, initially for GEP and subsequently for the whole of the MBBS programme as Head of Curriculum Design (2014-2017) and Director of MBBS Development (2017 to date). She was curriculum lead for international curriculum partnership with the University of Nicosia from 2010-2014. From 2014-2018, she designed, led the development of and implemented the work-based learning competence framework at St George's, the Clinical Practice Outcomes. She piloted its use as a cross-border (international) curriculum comparison tool with Marshall University, Virginia, USA in 2015. She was promoted to Senior Lecturer in Community-orientated Medical Education in 2003 and to Reader in Medical Education in 2020.
She brings over 20 years of experience in work-based learning, innovation in teaching and curriculum design, and servant leadership to St George's. She is particularly keen to support succession in younger colleagues and welcomes enquiries from those interested in a career in curriculum design.
Roles: Local
- 2017-date Director of MBBS development
- 2014-2017 Head of MBBS Curriculum Design
- 2006-2014 Clinical Sciences lead MBBS 4
- 2000-date Module convenor
- 2008-2018 Academic lead for Problem-based learning
- 2008-2009 Head of Graduate Stream year 1
- 1999-2006 GP Course Organiser
- 1999-2006 Community and Population Health theme lead
- 1999-2002 Community and Clinical Placements lead
- 2000-2009 Problem-based learning tutor and tutor trainer
- 1999-2004 Graduate Entry Progrmamme development team
Roles: National
- 2020-date Education leads advisory group (ELAG), Medical Schools Council
- 2012-date Education Associate, General Medical Council (GMC)
- 2013-2016 External examiner, University of Liverpool
Roles: International
- 2012-2019 Deputy team leader and team leader, GMC QA team, Southampton-Kassel BM(EU) partnership
- 2010-2014 Clinical sciences curriculum lead, University of Nicosia MBBS partnership
- 1999 Department for International Development project member:Clinical Guidelines group, Institute for Family Medicine, St Petersburg
- 1999 Visiting lecturer, University of Brunei, Masters in Primary Care