Professor Ellie Hothersall
Professor (T and S) and Head of Undergraduate Medicine
Undergraduate Medicine, School of Medicine
Contact
Biography
Professor Ellie Hothersall-Davies graduated from University College London in 2000 with an Intercalated BSc in Medical Anthropology (1st Class Honours), and with MBChB from the University of Glasgow in 2001. Since then, her career has taken her through a postgraduate certificate in Health Economics at University of Aberdeen, an MD from the University of Glasgow, and most recently a Masters of Medical Education from the University of Dundee.
She completed Higher Specialist Training in Public Health in the West Midlands, and was an NIHR Clinical Lecturer in Public Health at the University of Birmingham. She has completed the NIHR Clinical Academic Leadership programme at Ashridge as part of that Fellowship.
She is a Fellow of the Royal Anthropological Institute, and of the Faculty of Public Health.
Ellie moved to Dundee in 2011, initially in a combined research and teaching role. From 2011 to 2017 she was Theme Lead for Public Health and latterly Evidence Based Medicine. She became Deputy Convener of Systems in Practice in 2012, and Convener in 2013. She was appointed as head of the MBChB programme in 2018, then Head of Undergraduate Medicine in 2023. Between 2015-18 she was also Post Graduate Training Programme Director for Public Health in Scotland. She is a member of the Medical Schools Council Assessment Alliance Board. She is an Honorary Consultant in Public Health in NHS Tayside, where she was also Associate Director of Public Health during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Research
Professor Hothersall-Davies has a research interest in teaching and assessment of Public Health and related subjects, and in the attainment gap faced by medical students. She has carried out research relating to widening participation in medicine, financial challenges faced by medical students, as well as work in professionalism, feedback and curriculum design. She is a member of the UKMED Research Subgroup. She completed a Masters thesis exploring use of multiple choice questions to assess public health, sociology, psychology and evidence based medicine, and is in the process of a BEME systematic review of assessment of the same topics.
Teaching
Professor Hothersall-Davies is currently the Head of Undergraduate Medicine at the Medical School. She is extensively involved in curriculum design, teaching, assessment and student well-being, and has a national role in assessment.
She has recently been an external examiner for the postgraduate Masters in Public Health at Queens University Belfast and Warwick University, and undergraduate teaching at Leeds, Manchester and Edinburgh medical schools. She is currently external examiner for the Health Informatics module at University of Edinburgh medical school.
She has prior experience of teaching at undergraduate and postgraduate level at a number of universities in the West Midlands, and of curriculum development at Keele University.
Media availability
I am available for media commentary on my research.
Contact Corporate Communications for media enquiries.
Areas of expertise
- Public health
- Education
PhD Projects
Principal supervisor
PhD opportunity
Stories
News
Congratulations to many of our staff who were successful in their applications for promotion in the 23/24 cycle.
Press release
The University of Dundee has been commended for its support of medical students displaced by the war in Ukraine
Press release
The University of Dundee has welcomed two students from Ukraine’s Dnipro State Medical University, who have travelled to Scotland to train at Dundee's School of Medicine
