Reflections from the Head of School
With the year now underway, I would like to welcome you to the first edition of our Melbourne Medical School newsletter for the year. This is a great opportunity to reflect on recent highlights across our community, while also looking ahead to the priorities, partnerships and possibilities that will shape the year to come.
It was a pleasure to kickstart the year by joining colleagues at the MDHS Dean’s Honours Awards ceremony to celebrate our exceptional students. I’m very proud of the achievements of the Melbourne Medical School, where four graduates received Dean’s Honours in the 2025 cohort:
- Mia Hanley: Master of Genetic Counselling (Faculty values)
- Lillian McCann: Doctor of Medicine (Faculty values)
- Casidhe Goldsworthy: Master of Genetic Counselling (Academic merit)
- Jerry Luo: Doctor of Medicine (Faculty values)
In early March, I presented at the official launch of the new St Vincent’s Clinical School location at the Aikenhead Centre for Medical Discovery (ACMD). The purpose‑built space brings clinical education, research and innovation together within a hospital setting, creating new opportunities for collaboration. A few highlights of the launch included tours of the impressive range of new facilities and performances from the Melbourne Medical Students’ Society orchestra, who played during tours and refreshments.
The future of medicine will likely be shaped by rapid, technological advances, so at the Melbourne Medical School, we’re thinking about how we teach to prepare doctors for that future world. The new home of St Vincent’s Clinical School at ACMD offers that kind of environment, providing our MD students with hands-on clinical training, exposure to biomedical engineering and MedTech innovation, and opportunities to learn alongside clinicians, researchers and industry partners.
Later in the month, partnerships came to the fore again at the MDHS 150th Anniversary launch event, The Power of Partnerships, where we brought together the partners who have helped shape our Faculty, from our earliest hospital collaborations to the global networks driving health today. I also had the pleasure of co-hosting the Faculty’s first Town Hall for the year, where I shared a number of our recent successes and ongoing strategic priorities as a School.
Finally, I was pleased to be a part of the second instalment of the Melbourne Medical School and Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research (WEHI) Partnering for Impact Series, this time focusing on AI and Discovery Science. This event highlighted just how much exciting potential sits at the intersection of technology and medical research and reinforced the value of bringing our discovery scientists and clinicians together to facilitate collaborations that will help our progress and agility.
Even in times of fiscal constraint, it remains especially important, and encouraging, to see such momentum building across our School, in our teaching, research, partnerships, and community engagement. It has undoubtedly been a busy start to 2026, and I look forward to more exciting news and opportunities in the months ahead.
Best regards
Sarath Ranganathan
Head of the Melbourne Medical School