STEWART MERCER

Professor of Primary Care Research 
BSc, MSc, PhD, MBChB, FRCGP
E-mail Stewart.Mercer@glasgow.ac.uk 
Tel 0141 330 8351

Biography

Stewart Mercer took up post as Professor of Primary Care Research in the section in June 2008, supported by the Scottish School of Primary Care, and is national lead for research into the problems of multi-morbidity in primary care in Scotland.

Stewart studied medicine at Bristol University as a mature student, after a successful career in basic research in nutrition, carrying out PhD studies in metabolic research at the Dunn Nutrition Unit in Cambridge and post-doctoral studies on insulin sensitivity and diet in the Metabolic Research Laboratory, Oxford University. After houseman jobs in medicine and surgery in Bristol (Frenchay Hospital) and North Devon (Barnstable), respectively, he carried out SHO jobs in Scotland in rehabilitation medicine (Astley Ainslie Hospital, Edinburgh), psychiatry (St. John’s,West Lothian), and obstetrics and gynaecology (Crosshouse Hospital, Kilmarnock and Ayrshire Central Hospital, Irvine) then trained as a general practitioner in the west of Scotland at Biggar Health Centre. He worked as a volunteer doctor with the Tibetan community in North India in 1996 and in the aboriginal settlement on Palm Island, Australia in 1997, and had a long involvement with charitable medical work in  SE Asia (as a former deputy director and trustee of the Cambodia Trust).

He joined the section in August 1998 as a Higher Professional Training Fellow in General Practice and, from 2000 to 2003, he held a CSO research training fellowship, studying factors influencing patient enablement in areas of high deprivation in the west of Scotland. This was followed by a CSO Primary Care Research Career Award (2003 to 2008) on a programme of research on consultation quality and outcomes in areas of high deprivation. During 2007/2008 he took a leave of absence from his CSO PCRCA to be Visiting Professor in Primary Care Research and Acting Head of Division of Primary Care, at the School of Public Health (SPH), Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) for one year, and remains an Adjunct Professor at the SPH, CUHK (2008-2010).

Research interests include consultation quality and health outcomes in different settings, inequalities, multi-morbidity, and mental health.

Esteem factors

• Member of the Editorial Board of Family Practice (2006-ongoing)
• Member of the Editorial Board of Spirituality and Health International (2007-ongoing) 
• Member of the Grant Review Board for the Health and Health Services Research Fund and the Research Fund for Control of Infectious Diseases, Hong Kong Research Council (October 2007-September 2009)
• Member of the Long-Term Conditions Collaborative Reference Group (2008-ongoing)
• Member of the Mental Health Collaborative Reference Group (2008-ongoing)
• Co-Chair of the Health Inequalities Working Group, RCGP Scotland (2008-2009)
• Member of the Advisory Group of the Primary Care Mental Health Research and Development Programme, funded by the Scottish Government Health Department (2005-ongoing)
• Member of the Advisory Group of the Mental Health Delivery Plan for Scotland, Scottish Executive Health Department (2005-2006) 
• Member of the Advisory Group of the national ‘Doing Well by People with Depression’ programme and its evaluation, run by the Centre for Change and Innovation, Scottish Executive Health Department (2004 -2006)
• Member of the Complementary Therapies Clinical Studies Development Group of the National Cancer Research Institute (2004-2006) 
• Director and Executive Officer for Quality RCGP Scotland (2005-2006 )

Subject areas in which PhD supervision can be offered

• Multimorbidity
• Comorbidity
• Long term conditions
• Mental health
• Empathy/patient-centred care

Publications
Recent grants and current projects
PI profile