There are three office bearers who service the program and provide support for students in the program: The MPH Tutor and MPH Coordinator are available to assist students.
The MPH Tutor is a member of Faculty within the Department responsible for oversight of the program. The MPH Coordinator is an administrative member of staff who is responsible for timetabling and coordination of modules, maintenance of material on online sites, management of student grades, and mostly communicates with students and module coordinators.. The MPH Tutor’s responsibilities include overseeing timely assessment of modules, dissertations etc, overseeing student’s progress with the core and elective modules and with the dissertations and selection of dissertation supervisors.
The design of the MPH / PGDPH course is such that two-thirds of time is spent by the student at the place of work and only one third at the College of Medicine. The supervision and support arrangements have been designed to accommodate this. In addition to those above who service the program, each student will normally have two supervisors, although sometimes the role of dissertation supervisor may be taken up by one of the other supervisors. In other cases there may be a second dissertation supervisor.
Academic supervisor – each student is allocated an academic supervisor by the department of Public Health. The Academic Supervisor is the primary point of contact for the student with the Program.
2) Dissertation supervisor – each student should identify a primary and where necessary a secondary dissertation supervisor who should to be approved by the Public Health and Family Medicine Postgraduate and Research Committee (PHFMPRC). When the primary supervisor is not a member of faculty within the School a secondary supervisor based within the College is required. In cases where the student cannot identify a dissertation supervisor, the PHFMPRC will assist in identifying one for the student. The Primary Supervisor must hold an MPH or have other multidisciplinary qualifications suitable to the candidate’s research project. In some cases, the supervisor may not hold a higher degree but must nevertheless have an outstanding publication, research and/or academic record, particularly in supervision, which the PHFMPRC accepts as equivalent in standing to the higher degree.
Contracts
In line with a modern concept in continuous professional development, contracts are agreed between the student and each of the academic supervisor and the dissertation supervisor (see Appendices E and F). Each supervisor is expected to maintain a log of communications with their student(s).