The Annual Teachers’ Conference took place on Friday 9 June 2017 Celebrating the Student and Teacher Partnership. The keynote speaker, Professor Val Wass, highlighted four important areas we need to recognise and address as teachers to support students to flourish as clinicians in their future.
Do not confine students
to your own learning for they are born for another time
(Hebrews Proverb)
Generation Gap: Teachers have a responsibility to prepare students
to be able to flourish in the change and uncertainty ahead e.g. with limited
resources, changing health system, possible fall of Western dominance in the
world
Societal Borders: Here the barriers are not so much knowledge and
skills but achieving shared values such as human rights, dignity, equity. ‘The only true voyage of discovery, the only
fountain of Eternal Youth, would be not to visit strange lands but to possess
other eyes, to behold the universe through the eyes of another’ (Proust)
Speciality Borders: Healthcare, and in turn medical education, is
often delivered in silos and as GPs we too can be guilty of protecting our own
borders. By definition primary care is a
specialty and science of generalist knowledge which needs to be
celebrated, promoted and integrated.
Self Knowledge: If you can't see that your own culture has its own
set of interests, emotions, and biases, how can you expect to deal successfully
with someone else's culture? (Arthur Kleinman)
Lifetime GP Teaching
Awards
Two lifetime
teaching awards were presented at the Annual Teachers Conference 2017 to Dr Christine Scott and Dr Javier Salerno. Both recipients shared some of their
reflections from their teaching.
Dr Christine Scott
Were you aware you were
students’ inspiration and role model?
I think we often underestimate our impact on students. Now I
read my feedback I recognise once again how are extremely influential we are.
What a great privilege, and what a great responsibility!
How long have you been
teaching Imperial Medical Students for?
A lot of my embarrassment in receiving a lifetime teaching
award is that I've only really been teaching at Imperial for about eight years.
In a former era I taught undergraduates in my alma mater, Newcastle University. I have been
privileged to teach a number of different courses from first-year communication
skills and FCA, doing some lecturing and teaching both in my practice and in
the Department for Year 5 students on GP placement.
Why
Imperial?
I really became involved in Imperial when I came along with
a colleague to an introductory a teaching session, it was a pragmatic decision
sessions were available and it's my local medical school.
What kind of qualifications /
CPD did you build up when teaching and how did this help you in your teaching role?
Early on in my teaching I attended the deanery introduction
to teaching in primary care course, ITPCC. This really inspired me to be
creative about the way I taught and gave me confidence to experiment, I really
got a taste for it. Over the years the Imperial Annual Teacher’s Conference and
Imperial Foundations of Clinical Practice FoCP conferences have been wonderful
opportunities to learn. I always come not only with CPD credits but with
my mind buzzing with new ideas of ways to teach and a whole new PDP for myself.
In what ways has teaching
changed you and the way you practice medicine?
I think teaching has helped me to be more reflective and
self-critical but also more confident. There is nothing like teaching
something to ensure that you understand it well yourself and this is
particularly true teaching within the clinical setting. My students have
inspired me and challenged me to look at my practice through their young
eyes. The skills of facilitation and feedback that I have learnt have had
wider applicability working within the practice team. Lots of the teaching
provided to us GP tutors at Imperial has also been extremely helpful. I look
back gratefully on a number of memorable sessions particular those led by
Giskin Day, her teaching on medicine in the humanities has rekindled my love of
reading and given me the courage to become creative!
Do you think hosting students
has benefitted your GP practice, or the community you serve, in anyway?
The patients love talking to students and the perspective
they bring, both on individual patients and on the service in general have been
really useful. I think it also gives the whole practice a sense that they are
contributing to the development of future doctors. In these days when we often
feel tired and under pressure it's great to have the refreshing medical student
perspective.
With the current NHS admin
and recruitment pressures what would you be telling a family member if they
were a GP and considering teaching?
Do it! The students you meet and the support and training
you gain will be part of keeping you and enthusiastic. When it works well, and
it mostly does, the tutor-student partnership is formative for both parties, we
change students but they change us. It is also clear from students that
GPs are the people that really recognise them as individuals, adapt teaching to
suit their learning needs and care about them - and that really counts.
Finally, when I am old and unwell I want well taught and caring doctors
to look after me!
Is there a memorable funny
story from teaching you can imagine still recounting in the future?
I can't really think of any funny stories, but certainly
touching ones. The students who after his patient project was given a small Silver
teaspoon to remind him of parts of her story. My first year students performing
a ballad to tell their patients story. Most recently two students
explaining their patient’s illness using a wonderful model of a computer they
had made as an allegory for his life.
We’ve heard about a beautiful
house in France – tell us more about ‘life after being an Imperial teacher’
The beautiful house is on the edge of Paris and part of my
husband’s job. The main thing that will happen in my life after Imperial is being
able to spend much more time in Paris with him making the most of all
Paris offers. I'm also hoping to do some work developing appraisal
with doctors working abroad and take some of my counselling skills to support
our local church community. There will be plenty of time for coffee and museum
visits and my Imperial friends will be warmly welcomed so keep in touch!
Dr Javier Salerno
Dr Salerno accepted his award
by sharing six reflections of what students had said to him over the
years. You have to read this while being
said with infectious laughter and a huge Peruvian smile.
1.- “I like this
rotation as we do hands on medicine: I got experience to see patient from very
early on in my training and I saw and a lot different types of cases.”
2.- “I learned a lot more medicine in this rotation than I
sometimes do in the hospitals.”
3.- “I did not have a clue what I was going to do
as a post graduate studies however after this rotation I am considering general
practice very seriously.”
4.- “ I will read my BMJ, NEJM, Lancet, Jama
etc on a weekly bases (summaries/ abstracts)” (students were shown how to
access all these magazines free of charge).
5.- After diagnosing 3 melanomas on young people,
they asked how did I find them if they had come for a flu like illness and
chest infections. I asked them to remove their tops and melanomas were in
rear dorsal areas and behind the arms.
But why did you do that.....? Because of a 4 letter word which does not
beginning with f (they did not have an idea of such word)...... the word is
CARE which they should also take as part of their education in medicine and
humanity.
6.- “You are not just a GP are you?” (stated several times by medical
students) “You are a reader of medicine
aren't you?” (most flattering compliment to me)?
My aims for medical students:
to make it very interesting, to share enthusiasm and humanity, care and
compassion, friendship, up-to-date knowledge and above all fun! This is what they taught me in my medical
school: San Fernando medicine faculty/San Marcos University, Lima, Peru.
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