MSc in Surgical Science and Practice

'The course helps open your eyes to everything you don’t learn in clinical training' 

Omair Shariq, MBBS, MSc, DPhil 

The MSc in Surgical Science and Practice is a flexible part-time master’s degree designed for surgeons and other healthcare professionals, helping them develop as rounded clinical practitioners and leaders. The course curriculum and faculty are provided by the Nuffield Department of Surgical Sciences, with administrative support in the 2025-26 academic year provided by Oxford Lifelong Learning.

Clinical training programmes focus on the clinical skills for direct patient care. However, effectiveness requires a broader range of non-clinical skills and knowledge. These skills are not covered, or are only touched upon, in clinical training curricula.  

This course fills the gap. By studying Human Factors and Quality Improvement principles and methods, you will be able to design safer, better systems of care. In the Evidence-based Healthcare module, you develop the skills to evaluate evidence, compare alternative treatments and determine whether to incorporate alternative diagnostic and therapeutic techniques into your practice. Other modules explore new frontiers in technology, including AI and robotic surgery. You gain practical insights into making a winning business case and will learn how to innovate without putting patients at risk.  Finally, you will build your capabilities as a clinical educator, and study leadership and management as practiced in healthcare teams and organisations.

You explore these topics in the historic setting of Oxford University. Class sizes are kept small to support you in exchanging ideas and building connections with our world class faculty and fellow students. 

Having broadened your perspective studying the six taught modules, in your final year you go deeper in an area that especially motivates you and supports you in developing your career. You do this through a work-based dissertation. You are guided and supported by an Oxford supervisor as you carry out an original research project which, for many of our students, leads to journal publications and/or increased profile in their organisation.

The MSc in Surgical Science and Practice is a part-time course designed to be completed in two to four years by those in full-time clinical roles. It offers flexible, modular study which enables students to study alongside work commitments.