Summer 2011 Newsletter
Department News
Year 1 First Clinical Attachment
Year 3 Clinical Methods Teaching (CMT)
Year 5 GPPHC
Year 6 GP Student Assistantship (GPSA)
Dates for your diary
Department news
Dr Sian Powell
Dr Sian Powell has been appointed as the new Co-Course Lead for Year 6 GPSA, working alongside Dr Jenny Lebus. Sian joined the department in 2009 as a Clinical Teaching Fellow and has been involved in teaching and examining across all years, as well as several education research projects. Sian says: “I'm delighted to be co-leading with Jenny and look forward to getting to know all our Year 6 teachers in the weeks to come. Jenny and Grant's leadership has made this a great course and I'm very excited about the year ahead”.
Congratulations to Dr Jenny Lebus who has been awarded a Teaching Excellence Award for NHS teachers. This Faculty of Medicine award is open to all NHS staff who are involved in teaching undergraduates. Jenny’s award is a great achievement, recognising her commitment to excellence in undergraduate teaching over many years, including her key role as co-course lead for the Year 6 attachment with Dr Grant Blair.
We say goodbye to our two Academic ST4s who have been with us for the past year, Dr Bronwen Williams and Dr Cressie Amiel. Bronwen and Cressie have been a great asset to the department, and have been heavily involved with both teaching and research in the department. We wish them all the best for their future careers and hope to stay in close touch with them. We welcome our two new academic ST4s, Dr Catherine Baudains and Dr Emma Metters.
Dr Anju Verma
Congratulations to Dr Anju Verma who has been awarded a National Institute for Health Research In-Practice Fellowship in medical education research, based at University College London. Anju joined our department as an academic ST4 and then became a Clinical Teaching Fellow, most recently helping Jenny Lebus run the Year 6 GPSA.
The teaching staff have been busy with various educational research projects, several of which have been presented at high profile medical education conferences, or submitted for publication in peer reviewed journals. Projects include: focus group studies of student perceptions of CMT teaching in surgical topics; a literature review of how to teach physical examination skills; a survey study of ST3 attitudes to teaching; the teaching of leadership in our curriculum; changing demographics of CMT teachers; and correlation between early years exam performance and the Year 5 PACES exams. Watch this space for further news.
A little more exposure to general practice for students: we are piloting GP involvement in the Second Clinical Attachment in Year 2. Students who are attached to Northwick Park will go out to nearby practices for 2 GP sessions over the course of their 3 week attachment. This will allow them to have support in their history taking and also increased exposure to general practice in the early years of the course. If the pilot goes well we hope to expand the programme next year.
Year 1 First Clinical Attachment
The first years have really enjoyed the course. They tell us that it has kept them going through a year which is crammed full of basic science. Here is some of their feedback:
“It was really nice to see real people with real conditions in their homes. Getting the chance to build a relationship with a patient is invaluable.”
This year we have trialled the new e-portfolio software and the students have all completed a reflective portfolio of their visits and coursework. This has worked particularly well in terms of the students reflecting on their communication skills and the doctor-patient relationship. Here’s an example of feedback from a student who visited a patient who had had a limb amputation;
“Interaction with a real patient was something completely new, especially the fact that the patient opened up to us completely and shared with us all the details of his life. After the second visit, I felt more comfortable around the patient, and that enabled me to ask deeper questions and be able to understand the patient in more depth. Also, and most important I think, was the fact that throughout the development of my relationship with the patient, I evolved as a person and gained a more integrated knowledge of some aspects of life. “
Thank you so much to all the tutors; you have made the course such a valuable learning experience and given the students a fantastic and memorable introduction to the doctor patient relationship.
I would love to hear from anyone else who is interested in the teaching the first years. If you are interested please email me.
Dr Ros Herbert
Dr Ros Herbert, Course Lead, First Clinical Attachment
Year 3 Clinical Methods Teaching (CMT)
Following our workshop at the Annual Teachers’ Day in June, we have been using your suggestions to help develop a new CMT teacher’s website. Its purpose is to give teachers on-line support, with access to teaching resources, and an opportunity for teachers to share ideas and materials with others. We will keep you posted on progress. Again this year, CMT has proved to be popular with the students. Examples of student feedback:
“Our teacher was very thorough and keen to improve our skills. She also encouraged us to reflect on our strengths and weaknesses, and to offer peer feedback. The mock OSCE was particularly useful”
“Our teacher was patient, good at answering any questions we had and really organized so that we had a lot to do in each session”
Students have appreciated being welcomed into your practices. They thrive on the small group interaction and opportunity to meet patients to develop their clinical skills. Many thanks to all our CMT teachers; your enthusiasm and hard work is reflected in the student feedback. We also encourage new teachers to get involved and there are opportunities to become an examiner for experienced teachers.
Dr Sarvesh Saini, CMT Course Lead sarvesh.saini@imperial.ac.uk
Dr Caroline Collins, Clinical Teaching Fellow c.collins@imperial.ac.uk
Dr Sarvesh Saini
Dr Caroline Collins
Year 5 GPPHC
Firstly we would like to thank all of you for the fantastic and highly valued teaching which you are doing for our year 5 students, and to welcome any new teachers who are starting out - your help is greatly appreciated. The feedback for this attachment is overwhelmingly positive and the students really appreciate the one-to-one attention they get:
‘I had a fantastic time on the GP attachment. My GP involved me with everything that went on in the surgery and gave me responsibility in carrying out my own consultations which I then presented to him. I found this to be extremely useful in refining my history taking skills and examination technique.’
‘Excellent teaching. Really helped me to improve consultation skills and gave me freedom to practise and make mistakes which I could learn from whilst being well supervised.’
This year will be one of considerable change for us all as the course has been integrated with oncology to extend the three week attachment into a five week attachment. This will be an exciting and unique opportunity for students to embed themselves more firmly into general practice and to fully appreciate the integration of primary and secondary care. The core general practice teaching will remain the same with the same number of sessions in general practice, but this will be spread over 5 weeks, increasing the opportunities for experiencing more aspects of primary care.
We have made changes to the patient project and this will now be assessed as a formative exercise with a less prescriptive mark scheme. The students are asked to present their project to the practice with feedback from the practice team which will enhance the experience and help them to develop their presentation skills.
We have produced a tutor’s handbook to help outline what is required from the students and this has been emailed to you and sent out as a hard copy. We would value your feedback and comments on how you feel the new course is running, so please feel free to contact us with any queries or comments.
Dr Aisha Newth, Year 5 GPPHC Co-Course Lead a.newth@imperial.ac.uk
Aisha Newth
Dr James Stratford-Martin, Year 5 GPPHC Co-Course Lead
James Stratford-Martin
j.stratford-martin@imperial.ac.uk
Year 6 Student Assistantship (GPSA)
As ever, my annual vote of thanks to our enthusiastic teachers and generous hosts all over the UK who give our Year 6 students such a rich and valuable learning experience. It was great to see so many of you at the Annual Teachers' Workshop in June when we announced our plans to launch a Prize Fund in Memory of Grant Blair. It is a ring-fenced fund within the charitable wing of Imperial Alumni so all donations qualify for gift aid from UK taxpayers. We have already received some generous cheques on the day and for those who would like to donate, the link is: http://www.justgiving.com/The-Grant-Blair-Prize
We have not yet decided the exact format of the prize, so any thoughts would be welcome, bearing in mind there is already an Audit Prize and an overall GP Prize funded by the Alumni.
Hot off the press - Dr Sian Powell has been confirmed as my new co-lead for GPSA. Sian has been working in the department at Imperial for a while now and I am thrilled to have her join me.
The new portfolio of case reports is well established with only minor changes - I have added a few new suggestions to the "menu" of suitable cases in response to feedback that it was a little too prescriptive.
Feedback on placements has been generally very complimentary:
"Thank you very much for a very enjoyable 3 weeks. I really have learnt a lot from my time at the practice. There were plenty of opportunities to look for clinical signs, as well as learning new consultation skills. All the GPs in the practice were accommodating and friendly. The staff at the practice are also friendly and made for a very enjoyable experience. Dr X gave very honest and constructive advice about how to improve consultation skills which is what I found most useful. It is not very often that we are appraised like this"
"Dr Y is an excellent teacher who is adept at observing techniques and making suggestions which are very helpful"
"A great GP, very down to earth and provided me with an opportunity to see patients by myself which was my main aim"
There is a very large cohort of students this year so we need all of you even more than usual. Some students find their own placements (we do apply some qualifying criteria before allowing this) and this has proved an excellent way of recruiting new practices.
Once more unto the breach, dear friends!
Dr Jenny Lebus, Co-Course Lead Year 6 GP Student Assistantship j.lebus@imperial.ac.uk
Dr Sian Powell, Co-Course Lead Year 6 GP Student Assistantship sian.powell@imperial.ac.uk
