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Annual Teachers Conference 2023: Tutor prizes

Congratulations to all the winners of tutors prizes at the 2023 Annual Teachers Conference. Below you can read feedback from students placed with each of the winners:

Teaching Excellence Award: Dr Fatin Karam, Fairfield Medical Centre, Liverpool

Dr Fatin Karam has been the most wonderful GP Tutor throughout my GP placement and is an excellent educator.  She was encouraging in giving me responsibility to run my own clinics, take histories and document, perform examinations, develop a management plan and eventually debrief with her about each and every case. She would take a lot of time and effort to ensure that my learning was of utmost importance, I definitely noticed an improvement in my skills.

Overall, Fairfield Medical Centre is an incredible GP surgery and students who are placed here will have a fantastic learning experience in a highly supportive, friendly environment. I could not recommend it more highly.

Supporting the Student Experience Practice Award: Cardiff Bay Surgery

I was lucky to have had great teaching and the opportunity to consult independently. The teaching provided during the placement wasn’t as a formal session, but more opportunistic, thorough discussion of the cases after I had seen patients with a certain presentation. The GPs supervising me made sure to provide a wide range of presentations to expose me to. The practice has a more relaxed family feel to it, and they made sure to make me feel part of it.. All in all, this placement has confirmed that I do really like GP as a career and further motivated me to pursue this in future. I would love to work in a practice like this one. All the other practice staff were very nice and friendly, special mentions to Abeeda, the practice manager and the pharmacist.

Supporting the Student Experience Practice Award: The Village Practice, Islington

The team at The Village Practice were absolutely wonderful to learn under, and it was a huge privilege to have undertaken a placement in this practice. They paid particular attention to both the academic and wellbeing needs of us students, and worked hand-in-hand to ensure that we were obtaining our sign-offs but also encountering patients who would give us the best opportunity to learn to make us great future clinicians.

They provided us with amazing teaching opportunities, particularly by Dr.  Ardavan Algooneh. His clinical teaching sessions were thorough and he used great techniques to reinforce our learning.

Special mention also to Sammie Hubbard, Dr. Richard Ma and Dr. Robbie Howell  – they were essential in making this the wonderful clinical placement that it was. I envy students who get the chance to have their MICA placements there in the future

Supporting the Student Experience Award: Dr Jack Roberts, Richford Gate Medical Practice

Dr Jack Roberts is an amazing GP tutor. He is the best teacher I have had on placement in medical school. The highlight of this placement for me was the Tuesday afternoon tutorials where we covered history-taking and physical examination on a specific topic. Dr. Roberts kept the sessions interesting by acting as a patient himself for the history-taking part. Not only was his acting convincing, but the feedback and tutorial that followed were extremely helpful in developing our history-taking skills and clinical knowledge. My placement partner and I both agree that this has been the most fulfilling and enriching placement we have been on.

Supporting the Student Experience Practice Award: Wood Lane Medical Centre

The GPs did an amazing job integrating us into the practice and teaching us whilst we went through consultations. Dr Khawaja, Dr Merali and Dr Bhadye invested so much time and energy into us to make our placement as enjoyable and useful as possible. Any medical student in the future would greatly benefit from a placement at Wood Lane Medical Centre, it was truly exceptional!

All our GP tutors, namely Dr Khawaja, Dr Bhadye and Dr Merali were amazing and made huge efforts to support us in our learning. We were encouraged to attend home visits, run our own clinics and take the lead on examinations, all of which has exponentially improved my knowledge,  this is down to these three doctors creating an incredible learning environment for us.

Outstanding contribution to teaching nominations: Dr Shuman Hussein, Stanhope Mews West Surgery

Dr Shuman Hussein has been a GP tutor and PACES examiner for many years He has also assisted in taking on remedial placements/ and supporting students with additional needs particularly during the pandemic.  Dr Neepa Thacker

I am extremely grateful to have been placed in this GP surgery, it was one of the very best placements I have had so far in medical school.

I gained lots of practice in independent consulting, confidence in my clinical knowledge/history taking/examinations skills, greater awareness of what happens in primary care (not just during consultations, but between them, including administrative tasks)

I truly felt like I was part of the team. Even though I was the only medical student at the practice, I never felt alone – I was extremely supported and always invited to partake in any events

In particular, I want to thank Dr Hussein, my GP tutor/supervisor….and Dr Victoria Taylor.

The team was very caring and kind. They all were keen to help us learn and teach us about the cases that were quite different.

It was a lovely experience with great learning opportunities and practice for clinical medicine and felt supported.

Supporting students experiencing discrimination during GP placements 

by Dr Agalya Ramanathan

Whilst clinical placements in general practice continue to be rated highly by medical students, unfortunately, some students report experiencing or witnessing discrimination whilst on placement, which may lead to them feeling excluded, disengaged and experiencing poor wellbeing and mental health issues.  

Students affected have reported being unsure about who to go to for support and concern about what will happen if they do seek support. The BMA has created a racial harassment charter for medical schools which Imperial, along with many other universities, has signed up to. Two key aspects include supporting individuals to speak out, as evidence suggests students rarely do, and addressing racial harassment in placements.  

We have developed resources and training for our GP tutors on supporting students experiencing discrimination during their clinical placements. These include a video for GP tutors which includes student and tutor perspectives on how best to support students and further resources for tutors to access and share with students. The video can be viewed here:

Supporting students experiencing discrimination during GP placements.

In the video, Thivya Gangatharan, a medical student, shares her view that “If a student were to come to a GP tutor, and talk about their experiences of discrimination…one thing that would really really help would be just to have that space, just to provide space to talk about what it is they are reflecting on. Because… that’s really the first step to tackling discrimination. Having spaces where we can acknowledge that it happens and from then on, thinking about raising it further” 

At our Annual Teachers Conference on 9th June, we will be facilitating a workshop titled What can we do to support students who experience discrimination in primary care teaching settings? All our GP tutors are invited to attend. We are also planning a half-day training course on this topic for GP tutors. We hope these resources will be helpful for our tutors in ensuring our students feel supported.   

Please see our website https://www.imperial.ac.uk/school-public-health/primary-care-and-public-health/teaching/undergrad/atc/2023/ to book onto the Annual Teachers’ Conference. 

Health Equity: Community Perspectives

by Stephanie Powell

The Promoting Health Equity Student Selected Component (SSC) provides space for third year medical students to consider how social factors and lived experience impact health, access to healthcare and health outcomes, and how they can apply this understanding in their career. After a session exploring health equity, students spend two sessions with local community organisations to encourage their understanding of the health priorities of different groups.  

Hammersmith United Charities provide small grants for community initiatives and run almshouses. Here, students toured the almshouses and met with residents at their weekly coffee morning, discussing what about their health matters most to them. Urban Partnership Group runs a variety of community services. Students visited their Edward Woods community centre to hear more about their work and joined an Adult Education English class, discussing health priorities and inclusive access to healthcare for all patients regardless of their level of English. Mosaic LGBT+ Young Persons’ Trust supports young people in London who are part of the LGBT+ community through a variety of initiatives, events and support. Here, a panel of community members discussed their experience of LGBTQ+ health and answered questions from students.  

The organisations involved are keen to engage the next generation of medical professionals, highlighting what really matters to the communities they work with. Each session is co-created with them to ensure that they are mutually beneficial. 

“We are keen to engage medical students to shine a light on Almshouses and activities occurring in our community that have a positive impact on health. We hope it is helpful to understand potential ways that medical professionals can collaborate with community organisations for the benefit of their patients. Our residents are always happy to speak to students about their experiences and answer any questions they may have.” Victoria Hill – Chief Executive Hammersmith United Charities. 

Creating space for students to visit community organisations has proven useful for them to develop an understanding of community priorities. Reflecting on their experiences, students identified areas they had not previously considered, for example how people may be concerned about calling for an appointment because of fears that their English is not “good enough.” Others reflected on how older adults might be just as agile and engaged at 90 as they were at 60 and that having a community around them can help them avoid becoming isolated or lonely. Some students also suggested that clarifying pronouns could transform a consultation, ensuring they were not making assumptions which may affect patient care. 

In their own words “The community organisation visits were great! Learnt so much.”   

This SSC runs every term for third year medical students. If you would like to know more or have any thoughts, reach out to Community Collaboration Lead Stephanie Powell: stephanie.powell@imperial.ac.uk 

Communicating experiences in medicine through art

by Dr Megan Brown and Dr Stephanie Bull

A team at the Medical Education Innovation & Research Centre (MEdIC) have been working on bringing creative enquiry into the MBBS curriculum. Dr Megan Brown, Dr Stephanie Bull, and Dr Reem Moussa have co-created a Student Selected Component for medical students entitled “Exploring experiences in medicine through the creation of the arts” which will run this academic year 2022/23.

 

Funding won by Dr Stephanie Bull to incorporate artwork into medical school transitional spaces

This SSC builds on research more broadly within MEdIC which focuses on the impact of the creation of arts, and on a workshop recently presented by Megan at the Association of Medical Education (AMEE) international conference, on the topic of creative enquiry and flourishing within medical education.

Dr Reem Moussa created this artwork

The SSC will engage medical students actively in making art, by offering them opportunities to reflect on their lived experience of medical education using the art of others and create art of their own across diverse media (e.g., painting, drawing, sculpture, poetry, music, dance etc.).

Sharing creativity on twitter: Haiku is a Japanese poem of seventeen syllables, represented in three lines of five, seven and five

Students will be prompted to consider how the experience of creating art might inform their development or practice as a clinician. The team have shared images of the art they’ve created (across digital, written, and illustrated formats) as a way of beginning a conversation surrounding the joy and possible role of creating art within medical education.

Making Time for Widening Access to Community Careers in Healthcare

by Renee Ewe

Thank you to all our GP tutors who hosted WATCCH year 12 pupils at their practice this summer. We hope this was as rewarding an experience for you as it was for the pupils. We received overwhelmingly positive feedback about the transformative value of work experience from both pupils and our GP tutors.  

“I had the pleasure of hosting WATCCH pupils my practice. The pupils were very keen to learn and were very grateful for the opportunity to shadow healthcare professionals. During their work experience, they had dedicated time to ask questions about healthcare careers.  I also asked them to write a short reflective piece on their work experience and the challenges faced by the NHS to aid their interview preparation. The pupils produced very insightful pieces of work which formed the starting point of several fruitful discussions. Overall, I found the experience very fulfilling and I think the pupils gained a valuable insight into the life of a working GP, “ Dr Himanshu Bhatt, GP Partner, Brentfield Medical Centre. 

In the post-placement workshop, pupils also had the opportunity to share a reflective piece about their work experience. As part of this workshop, Stephanie Powell, our Community Collaborations Lead, delivered an innovative session aimed at improving confidence and encouraging participants to think on their feet.   

WATCCH pupil Faith Chidyausiku and Lazina Akbar attended their GP placement together and worked on a series of illustrations and descriptions of a variety of healthcare professionals that they had contact with in August

To help WATCCH pupils with their applications, the WATCCH team and mentors ran workshops on personal statements and interview skills.  A mock interview session is planned for the 26th of November. We look forward to hearing about our WATCCH pupils’ future plans.  

Annual Teachers Conference 2022: The stories that connect us

Our Annual Teachers Conference returned to campus on Wednesday 15 June 2022 and it was a great joy to see many of our colleagues from the GP community gathered together again.

This year the Undergraduate Primary Care Education Team were delighted to welcome three Imperial College London medical students as keynote speakers . This was the first time we have invited students to be our keynote, and I can firmly say it was a great success! The theme for the day was ‘the stories that connect us’. Students Thivyaa Gangatharan, Hamza Ikhlaq and Hareef Asunramu each shared their own stories of unique and inspiring journeys into medical school and the experiences that have shaped them as medical students. Each spoke movingly about their formative years pre-medical school and the paths that lead them to study medicine. They also beautifully shared their understanding of what belonging means to them within the medical school, and reflected on the relationships and connections that have helped shape their identities as our future doctors. To listen to each ten minute student keynote talk please go to our conference webpage  Annual Teachers Conference 2022 (https://www.imperial.ac.uk/school-public-health/primary-care-and-public-health/teaching/undergrad/atc/2022/)

There were a variety of workshops throughout the day to support GP tutors with CPD. These ranged from ‘Inclusive medical education’ and ‘Integrating sustainable healthcare into the undergraduate medical curriculum’ to workshops in coaching, personalised care and ‘training the workforce with generalist skills’.

We received some excellent feedback from delegates who attended the day: “Really touching to hear the student’s stories and made me think about my own connections. Listening to the student presentations, being able to think about new topics like sustainability and bounce off ideas with colleagues.”

Thank you to all our students, community tutors and faculty who helped make the day such a success.

Integrating sustainable healthcare into the undergraduate medical curriculum

by Dr Rene Ewe

Climate change is widely recognised as a health emergency. The GMC, NHS and WHO have emphasised the importance of teaching sustainable healthcare principles to medical students. The Planetary Health Report Card, a student-led review of sustainable healthcare education in the United Kingdom demonstrated huge variability in the level of integration into the core curriculum. At Imperial College London, we are making changes to our primary care curriculum to better equip our future doctors with the skills they will need to meet the NHS’s Net Zero initiative and to meet the changing healthcare demands of the global population. Tutors have reported that lack of familiarity with the principles of sustainable healthcare as a core barrier to teaching.

As part of this workshop, we will hear from our own students about the work they have been doing to drive changes in the curriculum. They will discuss the reasons why sustainable healthcare is so important, including the concept of the triple bottom line which highlights the economic, health and environmental benefits of greener health initiatives. We will then explore the challenges we face with integrating sustainability within the curriculum, and will invite an open discussion from attendees to help us further understand how we can support teaching of sustainable healthcare. We will discuss some of the successes the Department of Undergraduate Primary Care have had so far to galvanise our tutor community to push this further. We will round off this workshop with an open dialogue on your experiences of sustainable healthcare.

Society of Primary Care (SAPC) Madingley Conference 2022

By Dr Angelica Sharma (Academic Foundation Trainee, FY2, Imperial College London)

The Society of Primary Care (SAPC) Madingley Conference was held virtually between 20-21st January 2022 attracting over 200 attendees.

The theme was centred around ‘Primary Care – Building Back Better’. The sessions provided key knowledge updates, lessons learnt during the pandemic and ideas for change to help shape the future of primary care. The 2-day event focussed on areas such as health inequality and change including digital methods and innovative tools to address disparities in health care.

Panel discussions on ‘Digital Health: What’s Next?’ brainstormed ideas on how to integrate digital health tools within General Practice. Use of digital technologies in healthcare has progressed rapidly, especially in the face of COVID. In the next 20 years, approximately 90% of NHS jobs will require digital skills (Topol, 2019). However, there is a lack of formal integration of digital health within the medical curriculum and it is often an element that is not assessed within medical school.

Digital health initiatives included:

  1. ‘Live Well with Parkinson’s’ – a mobile application where patients living with Parkinson’s disease are able to track their symptoms on a day-to-day basis with clinicians receiving this data in live time.
  2. ‘Living with COVID Recovery Programme’ – formulating a clinical pathway to support individuals with long COVID with use of a patient-facing application delivering advice and offering a messaging service to contact health professionals.

I showcased our initiative to develop a primary care longitudinal digital health curriculum (DHC) for undergraduate medical students at Imperial College London. We compiled and reviewed learning objectives across all year groups and the learning objectives which had scope to integrate a digital health component were selected. As medical students are taught in a diverse range of settings, we explored appropriate formats of delivery of these learning objectives, including tutorial/lecture-based settings, and within written or clinical examinations. Finally, to align these curriculum changes with medical student assessments, we also carried out digital health exam question writing workshops. In these workshops, primary care clinicians were supported in implementing a digital health theme to proposed learning objectives. Key themes included patient generated data (i.e., wearables, mobile phone applications), remote consultations and electronic medical records. We were awarded the ‘Early Career Research’ Prize – with special thanks to Dr Renee Ewe, Dr Viral Thakerar and Dr Ravi Parekh.

We also presented medical education initiatives from the Primary Care Department at Imperial College including:

  1. Sense of belonging, authenticity, and wellbeing: A mixed-methods study – Dr Zoe Moula.

Medical students experience poorer wellbeing as compared to other students. Subject to the outcome of a funding application, this mixed-methods study will aim to understand how the sense of authenticity and belonging impacts medical students’ wellbeing. It will also aim to examine differences when adjusting for previous experiences of discrimination; pre-existing mental health conditions; protected characteristics; and year of study. The main objective of this study will be to identify and implement strategies that promote medical students’ sense of authenticity, belonging and wellbeing.

  1. Coaching skills for pupils from widening participation backgrounds considering healthcare careers – Hamza Ikhlaq (Medical Student).

A coaching skills workshop was developed and evaluated for sixth form pupils from widening participation backgrounds to support access to healthcare careers. Coaching offered students a greater sense of awareness and improved communication skills.

  1. Exploring the impact of a series of novel medical education masterclasses – Dr Nick Sylvan.

The masterclass series delivered in summer 2021 to UK medical students, included guest speakers, interactive workshops, and discussion panels on topic including diversity and inclusion, digital health, professional identity, preparation for practice and coaching skills. The masterclasses broadened students’ perspectives, agency, personal development, and inclusivity.

  1. Evaluation of the remote delivery of a community careers widening participation programme – Nida Hafiz (Medical Student). Widening Access to Careers in Community Healthcare (WATCCH) programme for Year 12 students who were from widening participation backgrounds. Due to the pandemic, the WATCCH programme was delivered online. Feedback from students suggested that although online sessions increased accessibility, face-to-face interaction would have helped build better relationships with peers and mentors.

Bethany Golding (Community Collaborations Lead) competed in a ‘Dragon’s Den’ style session on ‘What would you do with £1 million worth of funding?’. The talk focused on the importance of community engagement, especially in reaching out to communities and people with physical or mental health related disabilities. Examples of previous projects included tackling food poverty in local communities. She highlighted the importance of community small grants programmes to bring communities together around health and wellbeing in a way that is led by them.

The next SAPC Annual meeting will be held in Preston in July 2022, later this year.

WATCCH 2021/22: First Two Workshops Complete

by Dr Nikul Kotecha

Widening Access to Careers in Community Healthcare (WATCCH) is a widening participation initiative aimed at Year 12 students from state schools interested in a career in healthcare. WATCCH provides work experience, near-peer mentoring, and a programme of workshops on a range of healthcare careers and admissions help. The work experience and first two workshops have now been completed.

The first Imperial student-led workshop was on ‘Reflection and Coaching’ in which students engaged with mentors to reflect on their recent GP-based work experience as well as discuss their thoughts on matters such as the importance of reflection within the general/healthcare setting. Students then delved into the world of coaching. They were introduced to reflection and coaching frameworks and went on to apply their learning and skills in smaller groups. The workshop was really interactive and enjoyable and received really positive feedback from the students.

The second workshop was on ‘Personal Statements and Where should I apply’ where current medical students gave advice and tips on personal statement writing followed by a collaborative session reviewing personal statement drafts. The second workshop built on the first workshop where student used the reflection frameworks from the first workshop to probe further thinking regarding their personal statements in this conducive learning environment. Once again, the workshop received very positive feedback.

Preparation is already underway for the next useful workshop – ‘Interview Skills’.

For more about Widening Access to Careers in Community Healthcare, please see our website https://www.imperial.ac.uk/school-public-health/primary-care-and-public-health/teaching/watcch/

MEdIC Medical Education Masterclasses

by Sukhi Ubhi

During the summer, the Medical Education Research and Innovation Centre (MEdIC) delivered a series of free, virtual medical education masterclasses aimed particularly at UK medical students from under-represented backgrounds. Sessions covered topical areas in medical education including: coaching, preparation for practice, diversity & inclusion, digital health and professional identity.

The sessions were attended by 250 students from several UK universities including Imperial, Cardiff, Dundee, Leeds and Nottingham.

The feedback was overwhelmingly positive; students commented on how inspiring the sessions were and the enjoyment of meeting other medical students.

“Overall, the masterclasses provided a broad and insightful overview of medical education. I particularly enjoyed the opportunity to meet other like-minded students from different medical schools and the chance to listen to presentations and panel discussions by experts who shared their experience and passion for medical education”

Students felt the masterclasses had helped to increase their interests in pursing future careers in medical education:

“This experience has definitely made me consider medical education as a career choice”
“Prior to attending the masterclasses, I was uncertain about what medical education truly entails. However, now I have a deeper understanding of not only what it’s really about but also how to take the first steps to be involved”
“Overall the masterclasses have encouraged me to look at medical education with an inquisitive eye, always asking the questions: how well does current medical education translate into well-prepared doctors, and what changes are still needed? So, by giving me an insight into where the gaps may still lie, my interest in a career in medical education, as a means of being an instrument of change, has increased”

As part of the masterclasses, MEdIC ran a competition for students to submit medical education research project proposals. The shortlisted entries will be presented to a panel in November and the winning submission will be provided with supervision and funding by MEdIC to complete the project.