Program Overview

Diabetes is a global health emergency with over 600 million people expected to have the condition by 2030, representing 10% of the world’s population. Therefore the World Health Organisation (WHO) has classed diabetes as an epidemic requiring urgent action for both prevention and management. This has been echoed in Ireland’s Health Service Executive national policy and clinical strategy for diabetes. It is a chronic metabolic condition that can cause significant cardiovascular morbidity and mortality if not managed correctly. Central to this management is controlling key physiological indices such as blood sugar, blood pressure and blood lipid levels, as well as promoting health behaviours such as regular exercise, healthy eating and not smoking. Unfortunately achieving these biological targets and lifestyle goals is extremely challenging. Therefore given its growing prevalence and resulting impact on health care resources, there is an urgent need to provide specialist training in diabetes.  This interdisciplinary programme aims to meet this need.

Learning outcomes

• Have a systematic understanding of diabetes informed by the latest scholarship
• Have a critical awareness of the current problems / new insights in diabetes.
• Demonstrate a range of standard and specialised research tools for diabetes
• Develop new skills to a high level including novel and emerging techniques in diabetes
• Be able to act in a variety of professional contexts on the topic of diabetes
• Be able to take significant responsibility for leading diabetes research
• Be able to self-evaluate and take responsibility for continuing academic / professional development in diabetes
• Be able to scrutinise and reflect on diabetes social norms and relationships and act to change them