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I was a Clinical Teaching Fellow working between Basildon University Hospital and UCL Medical School, in between CT2 and starting as an ST3 in Trauma and Orthopaedics. My main roles centred around teaching final year medical students, but the variety of the work was part of what made the year such a great one. The links between the hospital and the medical school were very close, with great liaison between my supervisors, the admin teams at both organisations, and myself. This allowed us to work really well together, fine-tuning the new final year curriculum centrally, then seeing it in practice on the ground and feeding back straight away.
The flexibility of the role gave me scope to start my own projects. I had an idea for moving face-to-face junior doctor induction to an online system, and was really well supported in developing the idea, pitching it to the board, and working with consultants and managers to get it rolled out. The management experience was quite unique and unlike anything I could have gained in a standard clinical job.
There is plenty to do, and an opportunity to find and develop your own educational interests. As well as teaching students and junior doctors at Basildon, I ran the final year revision website, wrote final year exam questions, taught on TIPS courses and developed a new shortened TIPS course for junior doctors. I also got involved with the GMC fitness to practice programme, writing and standard-setting exam questions for doctors. Even with the opportunity for organisation and management, I spent a lot of time supervising and assessing medical students, particularly those that were re-sitting finals. It was a great way to understand the rewards and difficulties of being an educational supervisor - not something most registrars have experienced and a really useful insight into one of the many consultant-level duties junior doctors don't usually think about.
I was supported in completing a Postgraduate Certificate in Medical Education at the Royal College of Physicians and UCL which provided a good academic and theoretical background to the practical work I was doing. There was also plenty of opportunity for research and audit, and the experience I gained seemed to be really appreciated at my ST3 interview for Trauma and Orthopaedics. I'm finding there are all sorts of transferable skills. These include writing questions for UKITE, the FRCS(Orth) national practice exam. Even though I'm an ST3 and much more junior than the rest of the writing panel, the educational experience I have is really useful. I'm still doing some work for the medical school and with the GMC programme, which continues to develop my educational experience alongside my surgical training.
This was a fantastic job, and I'm really grateful for the opportunity to have worked in this role. I'd thoroughly recommend it to anyone with an interest in teaching who's keen to broaden their experience and gain some unique skill sets that aren't available anywhere else.
