The Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland (RCSI) conferred 835 students with undergraduate degrees and postgraduate awards at four conferring ceremonies last Thursday, 15 November in the College. This is the largest number of students to graduate from the College in one day.

The day commenced at 10am with the conferring of Degrees of Masters in Pharmacy to 134 students. At 12.30pm, 122 students were conferred with undergraduate degrees in Medicine, Pharmacy and Physiotherapy; Masters of Surgery Degrees and Higher Degrees by Research.

Among the Higher Degrees by Research were Scholars from two prestigious HRB funded structured PhD programmes in 'Diagnostics and Therapeutics for Human Disease' and 'Health Services Research. A PhD graduate from the co-tutelle programme between NUI, RCSI and the University of Montpellier was also conferred.

At 3pm, 157 candidates were conferred with Masters of Science (MSc) Degrees. At the final ceremony at 5pm, 422 students were conferred with postgraduate degrees in Nursing and Midwifery.

A number of awards were also presented at the Nursing and Midwifery ceremony including the Rose Lanigan Medal, Mary Frances Crowley Award and National Florence Nightingale Committee of Ireland Award.

Among those conferred were the first graduates of a unique RCSI/Dublin City University (DCU) joint MSc programme in Organisational Change and Leadership Development. These are the first graduates from the 3U Partnership between RCSI, NUI Maynooth and DCU. The programme is the result of an innovative partnership between Beaumont Hospital, DCU Business School and the RCSI Institute of Leadership and is the only bespoke hospital MSc programme in Ireland.

The ceremonies also saw the first graduates from the MSc in Leadership in Health Professions Education being conferred. This is an innovative programme, run by the RCSI Institute of Leadership, designed for leaders in health education of all professions. It focuses on the healthcare professional as both professional teacher and educational leaders.

Professor Cathal Kelly, CEO/Registrar, RCSI, said: "The variety and number of awards being presented here today reinforces RCSI's key role as a leading provider in healthcare education in Ireland. This marks a celebration and recognition of the graduate's accomplishments which they have achieved through outstanding ability, diligent application, sacrifice, excellent teaching and, in particular the support of family and friends. I would like to congratulate everyone here on their achievements and wish them success in their careers."