Prof Val Wass OBE (UK)
Email Chair
Prof Val Wass BSc (Hons), FRCGP, FRCP, MHPE, PhD, FHEA, FAoME is the WONCA representative for the Royal College of General Practitioners (RCGP) and has been an active member of the WONCA Working Party on Education. She is truly honoured and delighted to have been elected as Chair of the WONCA Working Party on Education.
She retired, last year, after five years as Head of the Keele School of Medicine, to take up a consultancy role as Emeritus Professor of Medical Education in the Faculty of Medicine and Health at Keele University in Staffordshire, UK.
Over the years she worked in Paediatric and Adult Nephrology for ten years before developing a strong interest in holistic generalist patient care and moving to train in Primary Care. After eleven years as a General Practitioner in Kent she joined Academic Medicine at Guy’s, Kings and St Thomas’s Medical school as a senior lecturer (1995-2003), and then became Professor of Community Based Medical, University of Manchester (2003-2009) before moving to Keele (2009-2105).
Val completed the International Masters in Health Profession Education (MHPE) at Maastricht University in the Netherlands and developed a long term interest in assessment methodology. This led to a PhD in Maastricht comparing traditional and new assessment tools. Subsequently research interests have centred on the assessment of professional behaviour and the impact of ethnic diversity on learning, communication and achievement. She has worked extensively internationally in both undergraduate and postgraduate education in over 25 countries and her publications have over 3,000 citations.
In the UK her National roles include Chair of the General Medical Council Assessment Advisory Board and Chair of a Higher Education England Task Force on GP Career Profiles in Medical Schools. Awards include the Higher Education Association National Teaching Fellowship, the RCGP William Pickles Medal, the RCGP President’s International Medal, the ASME Gold Medal 2015 for outstanding contribution to medical education and in 2016 Honorary Fellowship of the UK Academy of Medical Educators. In the 2015 New Year’s Honours she was awarded an OBE for services to medical education.