Good Practice examples 2014-15

Reflecting on the performance of students in the History Taking station, I volunteered to be the main facilitator for the 'Sunrise Round' - a session where students present cases with focus on history taking and developing their logical and analytical thinking. This is a new way of teaching the art of history taking. The sessions are always well attended and interactive and students have given good feedback. After the initial pilot, I am now running this for each placement group.

Dr Ritwick Banerjee
Consultant Physician with special interest in Endocrinology and Diabetes, Luton & Dunstable University Hospital

After noting incomplete clerkings and low confidence in clinical examinations from student surveys and focus groups, I assessed 100 medical students' clerkings. Then I created a plan to improve clerking, including developing UCL's Guide to Clerking with examples and a UCL Medical School's clerking proforma, which was a combination of each teaching hospital's proforma.

Dr Chrishan Gunasekera
Honorary Clinical Teaching Fellow, UCL Medical School and Norfolk & Norwich University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust

I have developed an SSC in Acute Medicine and Interface Geriatric Medicine as there was a clear need to enhance students' knowledge and understanding of Geriatric Medicine in an era of providing healthcare to increasing numbers of older adults, given that the over 80 year is the fastest growing population in the UK. The SSC provides opportunities for developing and enhancing students' communication skills with patients, their relatives and carers and the multidisciplinary team.

Dr Clifford Lisk
Consultant Physician in Acute Medicine and Geriatric Medicine, Barnet Hospital

Our methods of feedback and assessment are unique and very appreciated by students.... At the end of the attachment, we run a 5-station mock OSCE, as close to the real exam as possible. However, we include 2 minutes at the end of each station for students to be given immediate feedback on their performance as well as the usual summative assessment. The feedback is generally consultant led. The OSCE has proved to be very popular with students.

Dr Trevor Hedges & Dr Ronnie Misquith
Paediatric Undergraduate Teaching, Luton & Dunstable University Hospital

I have developed innovative ways of providing feedback to the students:

• A marked clerking: students write up a patient clerking - history, examination findings, differential diagnosis, plan of investigations and immediate and long-term management. They also reflect on an aspect of the case. This is marked by a consultant and the results are fed back. There is 100% agreement amongst the students that this is a very helpful exercise, particularly as it may be the only written clerking during their acute medicine attachment that gets formally reviewed.
• A written final assessment, followed by 90 minutes of self-marking and discussion. 100% of students found this very useful and at the right standard.
• An audit carried out by students and presented with feedback.
• During the 3 weeks, we also offer informal and formal (electronic ticket completion) feedback.

Dr Joanna Porter
Reader in Respiratory Medicine / Honorary Consultant

Following the success of UCLH's 'Twilight Teach the Teacher' course, I developed material for the Twilight tutors across all 3 UCL teaching hospitals and organised/delivered 16 sessions over 2013-2015 attended by foundation/core trainees from the Royal Free, Whittington and UCLH in order to improve their bedside teaching skills to medical students.

Dr Chrishan Gunasekera
Honorary Clinical Teaching Fellow, UCL Medical School and Norfolk & Norwich University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust

As the Foundation Programme Director, I have worked with the undergraduate lead to create a 'buddy' system for the students with the FY1s. This enables the students to discuss their difficulties with a peer group.

Dr Ritwick Banerjee
Consultant Physician with special interest in Endocrinology and Diabetes, Luton & Dunstable University Hospital

I have been a UCL MBBS personal tutor since 2006 and regularly support 5-6 students per year. I have had several students over the years with significant health issues, who have required extensive support through to course completion. As Year 4 CBT Lead, I have often had to make special arrangements for students with health issues to enable them to fully engage with the course.

Dr Melvyn Jones
Senior Lecturer in General Practice / Honorary Consultant NHS England

Luton Hospital provides unique exposure to both general and rare cases that we feel students can learn from. To allow them to settle into the department and feel encouraged to clerk, present patients etc, we start their attachment with an interesting case-based teaching session which includes rare conditions they are likely to see whilst they are here so they are not daunted by this. We also deliberately include a lot of bedside teaching, again so they feel comfortable in approaching paediatric patients.

Dr Trevor Hedges & Dr Ronnie Misquith
Paediatric Undergraduate Teaching, Luton & Dunstable University Hospital

The variability of examination techniques was felt to be a source of problems during bedside teaching. I introduced a weekly 15-minute demonstration of examination techniques with real patients. I do the examination myself in a student group of 30 and clarify doubts during the session. This provides a stress-free clinical environment for the reflective learners.

Dr Ritwick Banerjee
Consultant Physician with special interest in Endocrinology and Diabetes, Luton & Dunstable University Hospital

In order to support students in their own learning activities and to ensure that they understand what level of details they should learn, I have, over the past 4 years, continuously built up, developed and maintained an anatomy SDL (self-directed learning) resource in the form of a Moodle site....The site aims to provide anatomy learning material to support different, individual learning styles and students are free to use the material as they deem fit. The learning material is released on a weekly basis and matches taught events. I am currently experimenting with new learning tools in the form of short essay writing to give students an opportunity to gain more writing experience and peer-to-peer support.

Dr Sandra Martelli
Senior Teaching Fellow, Anatomy, Winner of the David Jordan Award for excellence in enhancing science in medical education