Medical Science

The Bachelor of Medical Science that we offer here at CQUniversity aims to develop your skills in a health professional role in medical research.

What’s unique about our course is that we offer four specialisations in biotechnology, clinical measurement, nutrition and pathology.

Each one of our specialty specialisation has been aligned after consultation with the industry. We want to make sure that our graduates are career ready and have employment opportunities upon graduation. Also within our course each year we have a course reference committee where we have external panel members from each one of our specialisations who provide us input on what are the current needs of the industry and how we can ensure that our course learning outcomes meet the needs of the industry.

Our students of Bachelor of Medical Science course have numerous opportunities to interact with professionals from the industry. This can be through guest lecturers that many professionals come and deliver throughout the course. It may be at residential schools where we invite guest lecturers once again for their expertise to share with the students or it could be at any one of the work placement opportunities that you have when you’re directly working  with professionals from the industry under the supervision, so there are excellent networking opportunities to learn from them and develop your skills.

Graduates have a multitude of career opportunities. Depending upon their specialisations students can progress to find career pathways as a biotechnologist, working in the health industry, working in medical research, working in the pharmaceutical industry. From clinical measurement students can take their career to progress and work as clinical measurement scientist working in either the public or the private sector, the nutrition specialisation leads to a career as a nutritionist and pathology specialisation leads to career pathways working as a medical lab scientist.

Practical skills are an essential part of the role of graduating as a medical scientist. Students have an opportunity for hands on placement within their specialisation. The work placement opportunities are in second year and third year depending upon your specialisation. These work placement opportunities are of 180 hours or six weeks in duration. The way our course is structured is that the theoretical aspects of the course marry up very nicely with work placement opportunities so that when you have the opportunity to be on work placement you’re able to apply the knowledge that you have learned in the course, hands on at your placement.

Our graduates have been successful in employment in various fields. I can give you examples from the public and private sector. I know many of our graduates have been employed by Queensland Health. There’s been a great demand there, many of them have been employed in the private sector also.

We’ve had students employed in pathology labs working as medical lab scientists. The most rewarding aspect in my role as Head of Course of Medical Science is the ability and the opportunity to change students lives through medical education and exploring the exciting world of medical science