Medical Education Opportunities

Getting involved in Medical Education teaching and examining

 

 

Getting involved in medical education at UCL Medical School - Examining 

We are always looking for examiners for Objective Structured Clinical Examinations (OSCEs). To examine, you must work at UCL or a UCL-affiliated clinical placement provider. Examinations take place at various sites over the course of the year. Please see the table below for details of OSCE dates for all year groups and which doctors are eligible.

 

OSCE Examiner Sign up forms

To sign up to examine at one of our sites please use the following sign-up link:

If you have any site-specific questions, please get in touch with the placement teams:

Experienced examiners are also invited to become question writers for CPSAs and the written assessments – please contact medsch.assessmentunit@ucl.ac.uk to find out more

 

 

OSCE Dates and eligible grades
Year Date(s) of OSCE Eligible grades
Year 2 Formative - 23rd February 2026 Formative - FY1 and above
Year 2 Summative - 26th & 28th May 2026 Summative - FY2 and above
Year 4 7th & 9th July 2026 FY2 and above
Year 5 30th June & 2nd July 2026 ST3 and above
Year 6 26th February 2026 ST3 and above

 

 

OSCE Examiner Training 

As part of GMC requirements, we require all OSCE examiners to have completed training before they assess at a UCL OSCE. Due to changes introduced in 2024/25 in how we run the OSCE, and the new platform we will be using for the assessment, we are asking all examiners to attend this training, including those who may have completed training prior to December 2024.  

We are offering both in-person and online MS Teams sessions. All sessions are 2 hours. For online sessions you will require a private space, working camera, working speakers and microphone and a second device to complete marking.

Click on a date below to sign-up:

Only those employed by UCL, a UCL teaching hospital or a GP practice that currently receives UCL students for placements are eligible to examine for our OSCEs and attend training.

If you have any queries, please contact medsch.assessmentunit@ucl.ac.uk


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Applied Knowledge Test (AKT) Question Writing Workshop

If you are interested in contributing or have been asked to contribute to UCL Medical School (UCLMS) AKTs then the UCLMS Assessment Unit are running two types of online question writing workshops that you can sign up to. We use the Exam-Write platform to deliver our AKTs and you will require training of the system before you can submit questions. The workshops run from the end of August 2025 to the end of September 2025. If none of the dates provided are suitable for you, please email medsch.assessmentunit@ucl.ac.uk
 

Eligibility:
You must be a UCL staff member or affiliated with one of our clinical providers that teaches UCLMS students.

New Exam-Write users:

This workshop demonstrates Exam-Write and the house style for UCLMS questions. To get the Teams link for the online workshop, please click on the date you want to attend and then use the blue ‘Register’ button on the right to register in advance for the event. Your registration details for Exam-Write will be sent to you within 3 working days with instructions. You will be asked you to write 2 questions into Exam-Write in advance.

  • Note new dates will be published in August 2026

Refresher online workshops: 

This workshop is for those who know how to use Exam-Write and require a refresher on the house style of UCLMS questions. This workshop does not show you how to use exam-write but there will be opportunity for Q&A if there is anything you would like to discuss. To get the Teams link for the online workshop, please click on the date you want to attend and then use the blue ‘Register’ button on the right to register in advance for the event.

  • Note new dates will be published in August 2026

If the above dates have past and you are interested in contributing, please get in contact with us at medsch.assessmentunit@ucl.ac.uk.

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Formative Applied Knowledge Test (AKT) Question Writing (practice papers) – FY1+

We’re inviting resident doctors (FY1+) to contribute a small number of formative single best answer (SBA) questions for UCL medical students.  

You will all have experienced the value of practice papers, and we want to create more of these so that our students can freely benefit from them more often. 

Eligibility: 

You must be a doctor (FY1+) with experience of being or supporting UCLMS students in the last 2 years. This includes working at or affiliated with one of our clinical providers that teaches UCLMS students. 

Summative or Formative AKT: 

If you are a GP or a consultant, we’d appreciate your help with the summative questions (see above re Question Writing Workshops), we want to give opportunities to junior doctors with an interest in medical education to contribute to formative assessments as a priority. However, contributing to the formative bank is a lesser commitment (minimum approx. 2hours), can be done at any time and does not require the use of our exam platform, so please do consider contributing if this works better for you.  

Getting Involved: 

Please use our online form below:

The first page of the form contains an example and short training video (15 minutes) to help get guide you.

If you have any queries, please contact medsch.assessmentunit@ucl.ac.uk

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Getting involved in medical education at UCL Medical School - Teaching

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 case? Please contact the Year 6 team for further information.  

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. These will be held on Thursday afternoons mid-January from 2-5pm. For dates and more information, please email the Year 1 team at: mbbsy1@ucl.ac.uk

Year 1 students will be submitting a 750-word reflection on what they’ve learned in their Toolkit sessions in February of each year. Topics covered include, thriving in study, assignments, and exams, Mental health, Race equality, Microaggressions, LGBTQ+ health, Professional dilemmas, Innovation and sustainability and Presentation skills, including a Microteach.

We are seeking volunteers to mark 10, ideally 20 essays (with a limit of 750 words). It can be an incredibly rewarding experience reading some students’ reflections, which have been known to bring some of us to tears in the past! Not to mention being good evidence for portfolios and FHEA applications.

The deadline for submitting grades and brief feedback is in March each year. 

Please email the Year 1 team for more info (including marking guidance) or to sign up: mbbsy1@ucl.ac.uk

  • 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 mbbsy2@ucl.ac.uk for more information and to sign up. 

  • A special component of the Year 1 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 late May/early June.  
  • 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. 

  • 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 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 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.   

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Getting involved in medical education at your NHS site 

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:

Central clinical sites: 

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

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. 

Teaching undergraduates is a team endeavour. Resident 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. 

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. 

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