Medical Education Opportunities

Getting involved in medical education at your NHS site 

Teaching Sites 

We have multiple clinical sites associated with teaching UCL medical students. These include primary care and the community, our central sites, and district general hospitals (DGHs).  

Primary care and the community:

• For GP medical education opportunities, have a look at the GP Teaching page. 

Central clinical sites: 

• University College London Hospital Trust 
• The Royal Free London Hospital Trust  
• Whittington Health Trust. 
• Barnet & North Middlesex (BMX) Trusts - Year 4 only 23.24 

District general hospitals: 

• Barnet Hospital 
• Basildon University Hospital 
• Lister Hospital 
• Luton and Dunstable University Hospital 
• North Middlesex University Hospital 
• Watford General Hospital 

If you are at one of the trusts above and are keen to get involved in medical student teaching, contact the Undergraduate team at the relevant NHS trust – see Year 4-6 Academic and Management Teams on the key contacts page. 

Firm involvement and supervision  

Teaching undergraduates is a team endeavor. Junior doctors should ensure that their firm lead and educational supervisor are aware of their teaching activities so that appropriate support and workload planning can be set up. Peer observation and feedback between members of the teaching firm can be helpful in developing teaching skills and ensuring the provision of good quality education. 

Site reports 

The Quality Assurance and Enhancement Unit organise visits to clinical placement providers. For the latest reports on your clinical site and find out more about the visit process, read the site visits webpage. 

Getting involved in medical education at UCL Medical School 

Examining 

We are always looking for examiners for Clinical and Professional Skills Assessment (CPSA, formerly OSCE) stations. To examine, you must work at a UCL-affiliated trust. Examinations take place at various sites over the course of the year. Please see the table below for details of CPSA dates for all year groups and which doctors are eligible. Experienced examiners are also invited to become question writers for CPSAs and the written assessments. Have a look at the assessment dates and sign up to examine via our Examiner Records website.  

Patient volunteer recruitment 

We also need your help in recruiting patients for Finals exams and for PACES. See the guidelines on appropriate patient recruitment and all the contact details on our patient volunteers webpage. 

Case of the Month (COTM)  

COTM is an online, interactive, case-based learning resource for final year students. It exists in Moodle, the Virtual Learning Environment (VLE), and is also available in other year groups. Interested in volunteering to be a COTM Tutor or write a new cases? Please contact the Year 6 team for further information.  

Supervising PAL SSC projects 

PALs (Peer Assisted Learning students) undertake a project related to an aspect of medical education during the 4 week SSC (Student Selected Component) in September. If you have an idea for a PALs project or would like to know more about what is involved, please get in contact with Catherine Phillips.  

Year 1 Microteach 

Would you be able to facilitate a Microteach session for Year 1 students as part of the Toolkit module? Students will deliver a 5 minute microteach for their peers in groups of 7-10 before receiving feedback from peers and from you. You will be given a lesson outline and some guidance on feedback. These are fun sessions to facilitate and are valuable for the students. In the 23/24 academic year these will be held on 11th January and 18th January 2024 from 2-5pm. For more information, please email Dr Emma Kelley.  

Undergraduate Teaching for Year 2 MBBS on the Cardiometabolic Pathway  

• This patient pathway is part of the Clinical and Professional Practice, and is an extended patient pathway.  
• We are looking for clinicians, at any grade, who work in or have an interest in Cardiology/Diabetes/Neurology to teach year 2 students by facilitating a live patient history/encounter in a small group.  
• You should be able to teach on how to approach patients with cardiometabolic diseases (conditions include: coronary disease, diabetes, heart failure and stroke).  
• Tutors will be asked to commit to four Friday afternoons during the Spring term and to mark a small number of short student essays. 
• This is an unpaid role but recognised by Load/Tariff and certificates of participation provided. If you are interested, please contact medsch.cpp@ucl.ac.uk for more information and to sign up. 

Foundation Year (FY) shadowing 

• A special component of the Year 2 clinical experience is the clinical shadowing sessions the students undertake, whereby students shadow a FY doctor for a shift. It gives early years medical students a glimpse of what their future career entails, as well as introducing the clinical setting from a doctor’s perspective.  
• We hope most FY1-2 doctors at the central sites will volunteer to take part.  
• Shadowing usually takes place in early November.  
• Students are allocated in pairs for half day shadowing sessions and FY doctors may take multiple pairs over the course of a week.   
• Look out for invitations to take part if you work at UCLH, Royal Free, Whittington or Barnet. Everyone who contributes receives a certificate for their portfolio. 

Reflective Practice Tutor  

• Year 4 students complete two short essays reflecting on a case or situation that they found interesting or challenging.  
• Tutors are responsible for marking essays and giving feedback online via Turnitin for a group of students.  
• The essays are marked between January and April each year, and it takes around 4 hours to mark a set of essays.  
• This is a great teaching opportunity for clinicians to develop skills in mentorship, providing feedback, and using a VLE. Once all marking is complete you will receive a certificate for your portfolio.  If you would like to volunteer for this role, please contact medsch.cpp@ucl.ac.uk for further details.  

Clinical and Professional Practice Tutors  

• Clinical and Professional Practice tutors are recruited annually in the summer, and commit to teaching 12 to 40 sessions per year, paid on a sessional basis.  
• We have a mixture of Tutors who have backgrounds as doctors, nurses and other allied health professionals. Tutors need to have a healthcare related qualification and experience in teaching.  
• You will be need to be available on Thursday mornings and/or afternoons and/or Friday mornings).   

There are four categories of CPP Tutor, with many Tutors choosing to teach across multiple categories. 

• Year 1 and Year 2 Tutors: Covering many topics across the early years’ curriculum. No specialist knowledge is required beyond experience in healthcare.  
• Year 4 Clinical Communication Tutors: Communication skills are taught in small groups, often using skilled actors to role play scenarios. This is suitable for experienced teachers or clinicians who have facilitated small group teaching sessions. 
• Year 4 Ethics and Law Tutors: Tutors with an interest in ethics and law in medicine would be welcome to contribute to this programme. 
• Year 4 Mental Health Tutors: Doctors with experience in psychiatry or general practice are highly valuable small group work facilitators for CPP teaching in mental health. 

There is more information on Clinical and Professional Practice on our website. Please contact medsch.cpp@ucl.ac.uk for more information.