Graduate Diploma in Medical Statistics (Distance Learning)

Statistics is one of the essential requirements for high quality medical research, and is vital to public health research. This program is designed to provide in depth knowledge in the application of statistical methods to the analysis of health related data. Graduates will develop a strong capacity to work effectively as integral members of a collaborative team to investigate problems in health and medicine.

The Graduate Diploma and Master of Medical Statistics are part of the Biostatistics Collaboration of Australia (BCA), a national training program in biostatistics. This is a program in biostatistics delivered by a consortium of universities around Australia. The BCA website is: http://www.bca.edu.au

Completions of these programs gives good access to employment as a Biostatistician, Faculty appointments at tertiary institutions, Research academic or research fellow in clinical or public health focused research institutions or statistical analysis and evaluation roles in government, private industry, or non-profit organizations.

Completion of a Bachelors degree in Mathematics or Statistics Science, Psychology, Medicine, Pharmacy, Nursing, Economics, Health Sciences or other appropriate discipline from an approved university (or equivalent qualification); a proven aptitude for advanced mathematical work, indicated for example by a high level of achievement in high school or undergraduate mathematics; already passed an introductory course in statistics, covering at least the estimation of means and proportions with confidence intervals, and the comparison of means and proportions between two groups using hypothesis tests (i.e. t-tests and chi-squared tests for 2x2 tables.

This program is available to offshore International students only.

The Faculty accepts that it is responsible for providing reasonable accommodations for students with special needs, in liaison with the Student Support Unit, which offers practical assistance and advice to students with a disability or chronic illness. The Faculty will seek advice from the Student Support Unit as to what constitutes "reasonable accommodations" under Anti-Discrimination legislation.

The programs aim to provide graduates with the skills to use statistical methods to investigate problems in health and medicine. Graduates will develop a strong capacity to work effectively as integral members of a collaborative team to investigate problems in health and medicine.

The program is part of the Biostatistics Collaboration of Australia and requires the completion of 80 units of coursework.

Students with an undergraduate degree in Mathematics or Statistics may be granted an exemption from doing BIOS6040 Mathematical Background in Biostatistics. If this exemption is granted then students will be required to take 10 units from the following list of courses:

• BIOS6080 Health Indicators and Health Surveys
• BIOS6090 Longitudinal and Correlated Data
• BIOS6100 Clinical Biostatistics
• BIOS6111 Bioinformatics
• BIOS6130 Bayesian Statistical Methods
• BIOS6141 Advanced Clinical Trials

Students considering undertaking the Medical Statistics programs should discuss course options with the Program Convenor, and will need to complete the BCA Nomination Form and the BCA Student Contact Information Form.

The program requires completion of 120 units of coursework, consisting of 90 units of Core courses and 30 units of Directed courses (including either BIOS6150 or BIOS6160).