Dean of Medicine, Professor Sudhesh Kumar OBE retires this summer after nearly 20 years with Warwick Medical School, making this a good time to catch up with him and discuss his highlights from his tenure as Dean.

When Sudhesh joined WMS in 2003, we were a fledgling medical school, still in partnership with Leicester University and recruiting fewer than 70 students per year. He was one of the first joint clinical appointments with University Hospital Coventry and Warwickshire (UHCW)and joined the School as Professor of Medicine. UHCW was called Walsgrave Hospital at that time Sudhesh remembers it as “The Grave”); its estates were run down and the hospital badly needed to recruit talented new staff. There were plans afoot for new hospital facilities and big ambitions to improve healthcare services in the region. At the time the young professor saw it as an exciting opportunity with the potential for him to make an impactful contribution.

Sudhesh quickly began establishing research programmes in diabetes and recruiting new academics to WMS to realise its research ambitions. He reflected, “Back then we didn’t even have our own WMS laboratories. We had to lodge in the (then) Biological Sciences department and, for a while, my group and I spent time in a portacabin. We were the among the first groups to move into brand new laboratories at the new Clinical Sciences Research Building at UHCW which was quite exciting and groundbreaking.”

As momentum and success grew, our campus up at Gibbet Hill expanded rapidly to accommodate a burgeoning research and education portfolio, seeing the establishment of the Warwick Clinical Trials Unit in 2005 and the Mechanochemical Cell Biology Building a decade later. Where there was success, there were also challenges, including regularly running out of space because we were growing so fast.

However, when Sudhesh became Dean in 2015, WMS faced different challenges. Morale was low after a bruising review of our staff establishment and headcount reduction. He and the leadership team had to make some strategic decisions to strengthen the financial position of the School and make improvements to quality. This resulted in the creation the three research divisions we have today: Biomedical Sciences, Clinical Trials Unit and Health Sciences. The re-structure helped to focus the School on a strategy for sustainable growth and re-balanced our education and research provision. A complete review of our postgraduate education also took place, streamlining our portfolio to fit our strategic objectives and to align with our expertise. Quality assurance and continuous improvement became routine practice.

Our MB ChB programme expanded and is now annually recruiting 193 students. Graduates of our MB ChB programme have among the best outcomes of all medical students in the UK and we are proud that our Warwick Doctors are not only academically excellent but have all the essential ingredients to become resilient and medics. We are also proud to be parenting a new medical school in Chester University who have recently launched their programme using our excellent MB ChB curriculum.

Having completely revitalised and strengthened our postgraduate taught provision, we have also expanded internationally, working in partnership with online education provider iheed and offering programmes across the world in public health, medical education, diabetes and clinical leadership. International partnerships have also been important to our post graduate research programmes with established doctoral training programmes in countries such as Singapore and India. These are high quality, esteemed programmes of excellence that are a real feather in the cap of education at WMS. We have also won and renewed MRC doctoral training programmes as well as a Wellcome Clinical PhD programme in collaboration with other Universities.

A major transformational change was establishing two successful undergraduate science degrees that play to our academic strengths in WMS. Launching during a pandemic was a challenge, but BSc Health and Medical Sciences and MSci Integrated Natural Science are going from strength to strength with the first cohort graduating this summer.

Sudhesh has also held key leadership roles outside of the School whilst Dean and these have not only developed his knowledge, experience and networks within the healthcare sector but have also helped him contribute to the success of WMS and the wider university. He said “I had the unique opportunity to be Director of the Institute of Digital Healthcare at WMG which enabled me to understand the potential impact that technology can have on medicine and healthcare. It also taught me a lot about how another department in the University conducts business and the ingredients for success"

"I was also a Non-Executive Director, then Senior Independent Director of University Hospital Coventry and Warwickshire (UHCW). In that capacity I have been able to support quality improvement and also influence research, education and partnership activities there. The hospital is doing very well now and I hope that I have had a positive role to play in that. I have also been a non-executive director, and then Vice Chair of NHS Digital. This has been incredibly beneficial because as we have come to find out, data does and will continue to have a huge role to play in healthcare. My experience from Warwick, coupled with my clinical experience has helped me with these roles and in turn I hope I have been able to give back to the university and Warwick Medical School through the things I have learned.” Sudhesh gives back in other ways too, contributing to the WMS Student Hardship Fund and sees this as a way of supporting the next generation of Doctors in a practical and impactful way.

One challenge, that called for strong leadership and focus was the Covid pandemic, a situation that faced us all but was particularly pertinent for the Medical School as many of our staff and students were called to work on the NHS front line - and we had launched two new undergraduate education programmes at the same time.

Sudhesh reflected “I am particularly proud of all the staff who worked so hard to enable the continuation of education during this time as well as substantial efforts that both staff and students made to support the University and regional NHS partners, working on the front line, establishing and working in testing and vaccination centres and carrying out impactful research to name but a few of the significant activities that we were all involved in. It shows the extent of the creativity and resilience of our people and how well we can adapt during the most challenging of times. In some respects, I see this as a bit of a turning point for our School because people could really see what we can do under pressure.”

We have embedded a successful values programme and are continuously working to improve our culture. In 2019 we received a silver Athena SWAN award, showing our commitment to equality within medicine and science. Our research has grown dramatically from a standing start 20 years ago. In 2023 we have had a particularly successful year, capturing around £35 million in new research awards which is impressive for a School of our size. Sudhesh said, “The massive growth we have seen is down to the quality of our academics and the strength and vision of our leadership team.

It is important to consider both internal and external worlds to ensure we are on the right track, provide focus for colleagues and foster a collegiate working environment. New facilities have really helped. We have opened the Interdisciplinary Biomedical Sciences building (IBRB) in the last couple of years which has provided a great space for our scientists to do things a bit differently. We have also recently received a Strategic Investment Fund from the University to develop a new Institute of Translational Medicine in partnership with UHCW which will include some high level, strategic appointments that my successor will take forward. I am also keen to see how things progress with the new National Centre for Anatomy and Surgical Training facility when it opens this autumn.”

Sudhesh himself has received myriad awards over the years for his services to medicine and health care, internationally, regionally and as an academic. In 2011 he was awarded Coventry City Award of Merit Gold Medal for outstanding personal achievement in the field of medical research and diabetes. In 2014 he received the MDRF Gold Medal for Diabetes Research in Chennai, India and in 2015 he was awarded a lifetime achievement award by the South Asian Health Foundation for his work on improving health outcomes in the South Asian Diaspora in the UK. He also received an OBE in 2019 from her late Majesty the Queen which he humbly described as a nice surprise and a good experience.

He is very keen to discuss his time at WMS in relation to the work of the School as a team and plays down his own personal achievements, preferring to champion others and collective success.

He said “We have lots of talented people at WMS who are highly cited. For example, we have an NIHR research professorship, the University’s first Wellcome Discovery Award, the University’s first Leverhulme International professorship, among many firsts! The Clinical Trials Unit is the biggest in the country for NIHR trials in terms of scale. It has been important to concentrate on growing talent from within the School and it was a deliberate strategy to recruit academics at Assistant Professor level who have progressed and thrived and we now have a group of fantastic future leaders which bodes well for the future years of WMS.”

Reflecting on what he might miss he said “There is never a dull day. There are always lots of issues to sort out but also lots of exciting things, great initiatives and ideas. I have come to expect amazing ideas from our staff and students regularly. It has been a pleasure to help people to realise their ambitions and a privilege and an honour to be Dean of WMS.”

When Sudhesh leaves WMS he will take up the role of Vice President for Health, in the Vice Chancellor’s Office at the University of Warwick in September.