Head - School of Medical Sciences

Nick Hawkins
MBBS, PhD, MHEd UNSW, FRCPA

Professor Hawkins was appointed as Deputy Head of the School of Medical Sciences in 2007, and became Head of School in 2008. He graduated with First Class Honours from the University of New South Wales in 1984, and after several years of clinical training, was awarded an NHMRC Postgraduate Medical Scholarship to undertake a doctoral thesis in renal pathobiology. He was appointed as Lecturer in the School of Pathology at UNSW in 1989. Over the next decade he established an active program of colorectal cancer research, with a particular emphasis on the relationship between genetic and pathological changes in this disease.

He has over 70 publications in peer reviewed journals in the fields of oncology, gastroenterology and pathology, and has received consistent peer reviewed funding from NHMRC, NSW Cancer Council and the Cancer Institute NSW. Since 2005, has been a Member of the Scientific Advisory Committee of the Australian Gastrointestinal Trials Group (AGITG). Nick has a strong and lasting commitment to the development and maintenance of medical education of the highest quality. He has a Masters Degree in Higher Education, and has developed a number of innovative educational programs, including the Images of Disease program that has been used widely by other universities in Australia. From 2002 to 2007, as Convenor of Phase 1 of the Medicine program at UNSW, he was responsible for the effective implementation of the first two years of this radically new curriculum. In 2007, he was the inaugural recipient of the Faculty of Medicine Award for Excellence in Teaching and Learning.

Professor Hawkins is a passionate advocate for the importance of pathology in the practice of medicine. He is a Fellow of the Royal College of Pathologists of Australasia, having obtained his specialist qualifications in Anatomical Pathology in 2002. Since 2006, he has worked with the NSW Cancer Council, the Cancer Institute NSW and the Commonwealth Dept of Health to develop and promulgate minimum datasets for the accurate pathological reporting of colorectal cancer in Australia.