Overview of the Department of Medicine (RMH/WH)

The Department of Medicine (RMH/WH) is a large clinical-based department of The University of Melbourne. It is one of three Departments of Medicine in the University of Melbourne's School of Medicine, the other two being locate at the the Austin Hospital in Heidelberg and at St Vincent's Hospital in Fitzroy.

The Department of Medicine (RMH/WH) was created in 1955 as the first clinical Department of Medicine with three academic staff, and had the theoretical responsibility for academic medicine in all the teaching hospitals of Melbourne. Today, the educational and research activities of the Department are primarily based at the Royal Melbourne and Western Hospital campuses of Melbourne Health and Western Health. The scope of the Department has expanded to include extensive research and postgraduate teaching programs. The Clinical School is responsible for the teaching of undergraduate medical students but departmental staff are involved in the clinical and pre-clinical training of medical students and have an active role in postgraduate education.

Professor Graham Brown has been Head of the Department since 1999 and is also the James Stewart Professor of Medicine. The inaugural James Stewart Professor of Medicine was Professor Richard Lovell who held the position from 1955 to 1984. He was succeeded by Professor Richard Larkins who held the positions of Head of Department and James Stewart Professor until 1998, when he became Dean of the Faculty of Medicine, Dentistry and Health Sciences.

The Department has increased in size markedly since its creation, there currently being 159 staff and 87 students located at a number of sites. A unit of the Department was created at the Western Hospital in 1987 and Professor Neville Yeomans appointed as Professor of Medicine. In September 2004 Professor Yeomans took up a position as the foundation Dean of Medicine of the University of Western Sydney. His successor is Professor Peter Ebeling, who commenced in December 2005. Professor Ebeling has an international reputation for his research in the field of osteoporosis.

Additional teaching and research units of the Department have also been established in Geriatric Medicine (associated with the National Ageing Research Institute), Rehabilitation Medicine and Rheumatic Diseases in association with The Arthritis Foundation of Victoria. There are also strong affiliations with many other hospital units, with many research staff, students and Fellows located in these areas.

At Royal Melbourne Hospital, the Department hosts the Cooperative Research Centre for Chronic Inflammatory Diseases, focusing on arthritis and lung disease.

Research in the Department is supported by many external research grants from bodies such as the National Health and Medical Research Council, National Heart Foundation, Diabetes Australia, and the Wellcome Trust. External research funding in the Department is approximately $8–9 million per annum.