CDU Menzies Medical Program

Charles Darwin University and Menzies School of Health Research have joined hands to offer a unique Medical Program, one which draws on our collective knowledge of the Northern Territory and its unique health landscape. Our purpose is to graduate doctors who will make a difference in our community.

The medical program is a 5-year undergraduate entry MD course. The first two foundation years are delivered on Casuarina campus and the final 3 years in clinical placements in community, primary care, and hospital settings across the Northern Territory (NT). First Nations culture and health is a cross cutting theme throughout our medical program to deliver on our purpose of our graduates making a difference in our community.

Four themes run throughout the medical program: patient care, health in the community, personal and professional development, and the scientific basis of medicine. The foundation years include learning clinical skills in our simulation suite, anatomy in our state-of-the-art dry anatomy laboratory, small-group collaborative learning applying biomedical sciences to clinical problems, lectures, tutorials and workshops – all integrated to provide the building blocks of a lifelong professional learning journey.  The clinical years will extend and apply your knowledge and skills in clinical and community settings across the tropics in the Top End to the desert in Central Australia and build your clinical experience through placements in speciality and subspecialty medicine. You will work with and learn from our First Nations health workforce. You will also develop public health and research skills throughout the program and complete a research project supported by our world class Menzies School of Health Research clinician researchers. 

Our Dean

Professor Dianne Stephens has been appointed as the Dean of the CDU Menzies Medical Program.

Professor Di Stephens has Fellowships in Anaesthesia and Intensive Care and moved to Darwin in 1998 as the first Intensive Care Specialist in the NT. From 1998 to 2017 she was the Director of ICU at Royal Darwin Hospital and helped developed the ICU service in Darwin focusing on improving critical care outcomes for the community of the Top End. Prof Stephens led the ICU response to the Bali bombings and deployed with the RAAF to Iraq during the war.

Following a sabbatical year in Fiji in 2016, Di returned to Darwin to the role of Medical Director of the National Critical Care and Trauma Response Centre (NCCTRC). In 2020/2021 Prof Stephens worked in the NT Health COVID-19 response as Deputy Chief Health Officer, CMO Quarantine Health Facilities and Director of Medical Services at the Centre for National Resilience. In January 2022 she was seconded full time from NT Health to CDU as the Foundation Dean of the CDU School of Medicine tasked with the establishment of the CDU Menzies Medical Program. Her research interests include sepsis, melioidosis, First Nations critical care outcomes, disaster health, heat health and quarantine facility models of care. Her detailed research profile can be accessed here. 
Professor Dianne Stephens - Research profile.