Keele’s dual-role medics supporting students and local patients
More than 200 healthcare academics at Keele University are combining teaching with frontline roles in the NHS - training the next generation of professionals while caring for local patients every day.
Many of these colleagues split their time between educating future doctors, radiographers and other health professionals, and treating patients in hospitals and services across Staffordshire, Shropshire and beyond.
As part of Keele's long and proud history of working with the local NHS and care providers, the University is celebrating three people whose work illustrates their wider impact in the community.
Bringing real-world surgery into teaching
Since graduating from medical school 30 years ago, Mr Vittal Rao has carried out around 6,000 operations. Vittal has taught medical students at Keele University since his appointment as a consultant surgeon in 2013 and became Surgical Lead for the Medical School in 2023. Alongside his academic work, Vittal is a consultant upper gastrointestinal (GI) and bariatric surgeon at University Hospitals of North Midlands NHS Trust (UHNM), where he has worked for 12 years, specialising in complex laparoscopic procedures at County Hospital, in Stafford.
On the frontline - and in the lecture room
As a diagnostic radiographer in the NHS, Sarah Booth acts as a critical, first-contact professional who operates cutting-edge technology to take internal images of patients, helping to understand and diagnose conditions and injuries. She works across emergency departments (A&E), operating theatres, and wards, working and consulting with colleagues to support patients until their treatment ends. When she’s not on the NHS frontline, Sarah is a lecturer in radiography at Keele, where she is inspiring and educating the next generation of radiographers.
Research and care improving heart treatment
Professor Mamas Mamas saves lives. Not only does he treat some of the region’s sickest patients who have coronary heart disease at Royal Stoke University Hospital, his research is changing the way in which cardiology procedures are being performed around the world and is saving the NHS money in the process. Mamas joined Keele University in 2015 as Professor of Cardiology and a Consultant Cardiologist at University Hospitals of North Midlands NHS Trust (UHNM). He has established an international reputation both as a practising interventional cardiologist and as a leading academic researcher in cardiovascular disease.
Keele has a long and proud history of working with the local NHS and care providers, delivering wide-ranging and world-leading research and education partnerships. More than 5,000 Keele-trained nurses and midwives work in the NHS, with the majority of them staying locally in Staffordshire, Shropshire and Cheshire after they graduate.
The university has also trained more than 1,400 doctors and has partnerships with over 100 GP practices in the area, including partnering with more than 50 per cent of GP surgeries across the whole of Shropshire, Telford and Wrekin. Here, students can help support the health and wellbeing of local communities and benefit from gaining clinical experience and quality placements.
The university has created videos of Mr Vittal Rao, Sarah Booth and Professor Mamas Mamas, to highlight their roles at Keele and in the NHS.
Professor Kevin Shakesheff, Vice-Chancellor of Keele University, said: "We are immensely proud of our Staffordshire roots and heritage, and of our long-standing partnership with the NHS. Having so many staff who are training the next generation while caring for today’s patients is hugely important and reflects our commitment as a civic university. As a modern, forward-thinking institution, we are dedicated to supporting, serving and working alongside our communities at every opportunity."
