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Hear what professionals have to say about what shapes medical education.
02. Year 1 of the MBChB.mp3
Speaker 1 All right. We are recording. Yes. So. Hello everyone! My name is Florian and I'm joined today by Alison Jack. Alison is a graduate of the University of Aberdeen from 2001. She has been involved in multiple roles delivering excellence in the School of Medicine, Medical Sciences, intuition. In 2017, she became Deputy Programme Lead for the Ncbi. But today she's here to discuss with us her role as lead for the year one of the PFP program. So, Alison, what does your role as year lead mean for students and staff?
Speaker 2 Hi, Florian. I think my role as a year lead means I have oversight over everything that's happening in year one. So, my job is to make sure ultimately, that the teaching that the students need is delivered to them. So I coordinate the different blocks. In year one, there are a number of different blocks. We have, lecture based courses, we have clinical skills, we have anatomy. And we have some professional practice blocks as well. So my role is to make sure that the people involved in teaching all those different elements are available to teach, know what they should be teaching, have the resources to teach. So it's a bit of coordinating the staff side, but I'm also, point of contact for students. So if students have any questions, any concerns, I'm often the first person they would approach. Don't always know the answers, but if I don't know the answers, hopefully I know somebody who does and I can direct the students to those people. I do a bit of teaching as well myself. Obviously, I can't teach the whole curriculum. So, the students see quite a lot of me in a teaching capacity, but really my, my role is about coordinating their teaching and making sure that they have access to the teaching that they need. Also coordinating the exams, scrutinising the results, making sure they're correct before they get released. They can student feedback that comes in, looking to see what we're doing. Well, what the students think that we're doing well and we should do more of, looking at things. Students think we're maybe not doing so well and could improve and look at ways of developing our own curriculum, you know, in years. Well, a lot of the curriculum that we deliver now has been shaped by students in the past who've fed back to us what has worked well or what hasn't worked well for them. And then we've adapted their curriculum as a result of that.
Speaker 1 So thinking about the students first, do they come into higher education with certain expectations of what an PFP degree is?
Speaker 2 I think expectations differ for different students, but probably by and large, I think a number of them think they're going to come in and be launched straight away into doing, hands on things with patients and saving lives and things right from the start. And obviously, it's not that. Hands on or that exciting. At the beginning of first year. But they do have patient contact very early on with our patient partners who are volunteers. So they start role playing clinical practice very, very quickly. They're also out on the wards in a supervised fashion very quickly. And we have, this year, we had first year shadowing fifth year students for the first time. And the feedback on that has been really good. So that seems to have worked quite well. The first half of first year is very much about trying to level the playing field, because we've got students coming into year one from all sorts of different backgrounds, some coming straight from school, some coming through specific entry pathways, summer graduates. So they come in with very different backgrounds in terms of academic knowledge. The first time is really about trying to standardise that. And then the second term of year one is probably more what students expect medical school to be like. We start looking at the different systems of the body. So we look at how your respiratory system works, first of all, and then the cardiovascular system back in year one. And then in year two, they go in and they do the other systems like gastrointestinal system, renal system, nervous system, etc. and that's probably more of what students expect medical school to be like from that second time when they start looking at diseases that many people will have heard of asthma, myocardial infarction, things like that.
Speaker 1 So it sounds as if in the main in the first half session of of the year, you address the challenges that students might face. And in the second session is just, teaching as usual in the way, you mentioned that, a lot of your work revolves around admin tasks and ensuring that students have access to everything they need to have a successful, entry into medical sciences and medicine. Do you believe that the university is offering, enough support in meeting those challenges?
Speaker 2 I think so I've got a really good support team around me. Katie Bushey is our year one administrator, and, Katie's just worth our. We can go. And I don't know where we'd be without Katie. And there are other people in the admin team like Mrs. Cummins that are from anatomy. She administrators. A lot of the anatomy. There is administration team. The patient part patient partner, coordinator within clinical skills. Doctor Christine Kay coordinates all the admin staff. We've got, a team of assessment staff as well who are absolutely fundamental in helping us run our exams. So there's a big admin team behind the academic team, some of which the students are familiar with. So, Aggie crew come in, they turn anatomy and Katie Bucci, year one administrator. The students know very well they probably don't know Jenny Dick and Suzanne Cameron Swagger, our assessment coordinators, because they're really a bit more behind the scenes, but they're just as important, especially when it comes to the exams, which is really what the students are most focussed on at the end of the day.
Speaker 1 So it sounds as if you're one has a lot of input from, many branches of university. Is it also a lot of input from clinical educators? So early on in the degree?
Speaker 2 Absolutely, yes. Lots of clinical educators. So we've got a team of clinical tutors who deliver the clinical skills teaching. And they're absolutely fundamental. And that role. We also have what we call clinical teaching fellows who are members of clinical staff who have taken normally a year, sometimes two years out of clinical practice to come and work in medical education. And this year we're really lucky because we've got five clinical teaching fellows, which means that one has been tagged two each year. And we've got, our own clinical teaching fellow in year one for this year, lady called Laura McCrimmon. And that is really helpful because that allows us to have a dedicated member of staff for year one clinical background that can help us shape some of our curriculum, and also who we can direct students to in a supportive fashion, who has hands on experience of working in the wards because, the the year one core year one team, myself and my deputy are not clinically educated and I'm a. Geologist and virtu my, my deputies also biomedical scientist. So it, it's really useful for us to have a clinical member within our team. So if students come, they've maybe got concerns about going the words or they've got concerns about some aspect of clinical practice that we can direct them to our clinician who just talked to the team.
Speaker 1 Speaking about the support that students receive, starting any degrees. It's quite a quite a leap for, for anybody. But as you mentioned, students come from different backgrounds. They have different expectations. What sort of support is there available for students who might struggle or who might have issues that will affect their academic performance?
Speaker 2 There's lots of support available here, and I think Aberdeen's actually known as being one of the most supportive medical schools. We have our own dedicated team of support staff within the medical school, that's run by Doctor Lowe. The university also has its own student support team. So sometimes students feel uncomfortable talking about issues that they might be having within the medical school. They want to talk to somebody out with the medical school, so they can then speak to somebody at the university student support team. The university also has a counselling service which is available to all students and staff. So those are the official means of support. But often students do just want somebody to talk to. And often they will come to myself or to Katie and just see this is happening. What should I do about it? And we can either just sit and chat to them, or we can direct them to more specific forms of support. Many students come with various forms of disabilities and require adjustments for teaching. So there's the student disability team and they will meet with students, assess any disabilities, and then make recommendations to us as to how we could maybe adjust the exams. Extra time is a really common thing that students get if they've got a recognised disability, but there are other forms of adjustments as well that students can have. Occupational health is another one. If students have health issues again or disabilities, they can be assessed by occupational health. And they that that team is particularly helpful in advising us on adjustments that might be required in the clinical area. Whereas disability team at university is more about adjustments for exams and day to day learning, occupational health can be really helpful in advising us how to make adjustments for the clinical areas.
Speaker 1 Our students in year one. A bit surprised by how much it means, that the. Sorry, our students in year one. Surprised by how much, the non-academic, aspects. Matter in becoming a successful, graduate. I'm thinking a bit back about my discussion with Leanne about professionalism. So students moving into the hierarchy Demic environment, I believe that their grades are the only thing that matters, but there's so much more to to it than when it comes to being a doctor.
Speaker 2 Yes, I would say that's true. I think that students in first year are often surprised by the fact that we expect them to demonstrate professionalism right from day one, and not just when they think they're being watched or say. So it's not just that we expect them to be professional when they're doing the Roski exams, which are their clinical skills exams. We expect them to be professional in all aspects of their life from the day they start medical school, and that includes how they interact with people on the course, both their peers and staff. And I tell them from the start that we expect you to treat staff and your peers with respect and equally, you should expect respect from staff and peers. And that is at all times, not just when you think somebody is watching you, that that respect should be, shared at all times, but also, in social media as well. And because people are so used to communicating by social media, I think it's very easy to forget when you become a medical student, that the tone of your communications needs to change a little bit, because anything that's on social media really is public, because as soon as you've written it down and sent it, you've got no control over what happens to after that. So we do sometimes have issues with students and social media, particularly in first year, but not exclusively in first year. Just forgetting about that professionalism aspect. And needing to be reminded about that. So yes, I think that's a big thing. Being a medical student is not just about the academic side and passing exams. It's about learning to be mature, respectful, professional at all times, really.
Speaker 1 So the aspects of medical education that reflect back into, an individual's lifestyle are what, some of your students, do you think that this changes their view of the prospect that they have in the future? And have any of the students, you know, have second thoughts about the decision, what sort of support they receive?
Speaker 2 Some students do decide that medicine isn't for them. That can be for all sorts of different reasons. I don't know if it's particularly the professionalism side of things. I think sometimes the they come into the course and sometimes very quickly decide, actually, this isn't what I thought it was going to be, and I don't want to do this anymore. Sometimes students decide quite late in the program that they don't want to do medicine anymore. And, there are various exit points throughout the program. So if a student does decide, at different points that they don't want to do this anymore, they can leave with different, a different set of qualifications depending on how far they've got through the program. In year one, if they decide that they don't think medicine's for them anymore, we will sit and chat with them and we'll try and work out why they feel that way. But most of the time, by the time students have decided medicine isn't for them, there are good reasons for that. And they are happier with if they move to a different degree program. And within the university, it's reasonably easy for students to transfer from medicine to another degree program. And that's it doesn't happen a lot. I would say every year we have 1 or 2 students out of 300 who, realise that medicine isn't for them. We had one this year who very quickly decided not someone know. I wanted to do and swap to do biology and is now very happy as far as I can gather and doing that. So I wouldn't be stopping a student from transferring, because what we want are happy students who are doing a program that they really enjoy. And, if you're not enjoying it, you're probably not going to do terribly well in it. But sometimes, sometimes we sit and speak to students who are having second thoughts, and we listen to what's worrying them. And sometimes we can reassure them that this will change things like seeing blood. I don't like seeing blood. I don't want to see blood. And that is something that you will get over very quickly in anatomy, dealing with the dead bodies. Again, that is quite daunting the first time that you see a dead body, but we introduce that slowly and sensitively and, you know that again, that is something that students. Get over and and become comfortable back very quickly. So there are some things that will be able to reassure students about, and other things students know in their heart that this isn't what they want to do, and then we can support them to change program and do something that is more what they want to do.
Speaker 1 You mentioned that students come into first year with some expectations. And you have had the opportunity to see multiple cohorts of your students. From your experience, do you think that their expectations reflected it on, on, on the way, society, how their views, the image of the medical degree?
Speaker 2 Perhaps, you know, perhaps they come in, they've they've been watching House or casualty or Grey's Anatomy or whatever, and they have this view of medical school being like that. And, and obviously real life and fiction are very different. I think it's more that when they come in at the start of first year, they're think they're going straight in to heavy clinical lectures. And that isn't how we start first year. We start first year. By, as I say, trying to bring everybody up to the same level. And the first course that the students do is a course called Foundations of Medicine, which, gives you the basic background of how the body works and how the nervous system works and, how cells communicate and things like that. But at the same time, they also start doing anatomy in week one or week two, they start doing clinical skills, and one, they meet patient partners very quickly. So there is anatomy in clinical teaching very early on, but they're not going straight into learning the details about myocardial infarction or stroke or asthma, lung cancer or whatever. But they do start learning about the cell biology of cancer. They do learn CPR, cardiopulmonary resuscitation. You do learn that in term one. So they are doing clinical things straight away. What I think is the main shock in year one is the volume of work. I think that is the biggest shock for students. We all know it's going to be hard work. I think very few of them realise just how hard work it's going to be, and it's that volume of work. I think that's the biggest shock. The teaching isn't difficult, there's just a lot of it. And so students need to have good self-discipline, good time management in order to succeed because it is relentless.
Speaker 1 You mentioned that this year, students had the opportunity to shadow Year five student. Do you know of any other sort of informal or formal methods of students supporting each other?
Speaker 2 Yes, we have, the senior student mentor scheme. So this is very year four and five students can volunteer to mentor the year one student. So the year one students can opt into that program. It's not compulsory, but they can opt to have a senior student mentor. And we will match up the senior volunteers with the first year who've opted for a mentor. So they have somebody higher up in the program that they can speak to, and that's really useful, I think, because that's somebody who's been through the program, knows what it's like in first year. They were in first year not that terribly long ago, and they know how the program unfolds. So I think that's really useful. Made SoC also have the the year to mom and dad. So year one students get matched up with a year to mum and dad. so again that is again peer to peer mentoring but closer because that's between year one and two rather than your one and year 4 or 5. We have what we call Pals tutoring. So this is peer assisted learning. And this is where more senior students will come in and formally teach junior students. So that happens a lot in anatomy and clinical skills. To a lesser extent, some of our problem solving tutorials, we have a number of different societies and those different medical societies, have students from all across the program involved in them. So that's an opportunity for students of all the different years to meet and chat. And I think because. All the students are based at first to hell. They bump into each other a lot. And so even though we're not formally introducing them to other students higher up the years, it's very common for me to meet a first year who says, oh, I was speaking to so-and-so, who's in year three, and you've just met them by socialising within the city centre. So just that close proximity of having years one, two and three, particularly in the city centre, circulating in the same space, friendships form. But then there are these other routes which I've spoken about as well.
Speaker 1 So we can take a bit of pride in creating an environment that facilitates communication between students.
Speaker 2 The other thing maybe to mention is in our Problem-Solving classes that is designed to be peer assisted learning. So the students will get questions, and then we get them into small groups. And what we want the students to do in their small groups is to discuss the questions and teach each other, I suppose so. So work through the problems, do a bit of brainstorming with each other. And if you've got students who know the answer to understand it. They then teach the others. And these are facilitated sessions. So there's a member of staff present. But the emphasis is on the students teaching each other. And the staff are just there. If things come to an abrupt halt and the students get stuck, then the staff are there to help. But the focus is very much on the students and supporting each other.
Speaker 1 Do you think that there's anything else that we could do as an institution to further enhance the experience of students in year one?
Speaker 2 I think we're all we're trying to enhance, the experience. And so the senior student mentoring scheme, which I've spoken about, and that was something that we introduced, just a couple of years ago during Covid as a means of trying to ease that transition into medical school, because that can be really difficult for some students. So I think, you know, it's there's never going we're never going to get to the end of the road of enhancing the student experience. That's always going to be something that we'll be working on. And the student feedback that we get is really important in directing us as to what the students feel they need and what would be helpful.
Speaker 1 You mentioned that we receive a lot of support and input from clinical educators. If there are any new clinical educators out there that might want to be involved, with tier one, what would be the best way for them to, to approach this?
Speaker 2 I think if they are interested in doing. Clinical skills, teaching the person to speak to a probability doctor, Angus Cooper, who is the director of the Clinical Skills Unit. He would probably be the best person to speak to in the first instance, although obviously people can come to me and then I can direct them, as appropriate. If the people are interested in doing ward based teaching. Then again, probably Angus is still the best person to speak to. Because there are people within Angus's team who organise the ward placements, but probably easiest person, sweet tooth Angus or myself. And then we can put anybody in touch with the appropriate people, depending on what their interests are and what they would like to do. And if it is lecture based teaching that people are interested in doing our problem solving, then it would be myself and I can. Then we've got different block leads. So we've got a block lead for respiratory, a clinical block lead for cardiology. But rather than give you all that is just dive I think probably if people were interested, if you just get in touch with media, then I can put them in touch with the clinical block lead. And we would love to have more people, interested in delivering lectures because that's something that we often struggle with. So if people are up for delivering lectures on their speciality, then we would love to hear from them.
Speaker 1 Brilliant. Well, it sounds like your one is an exciting start to it, to a wonderful journey. Do you have any closing remarks for students?
Speaker 2 I think just have a great time. Work hard, play hard. And, there'll always be somebody here for you to speak to if you're ever having problems. But I think we've got a large, class now. 300 students. And I think you're bound to find somebody, lots of people in there who are going to be your friends. And I just hope that all our students have some of the best days of their life here at university. I think I have the best days of my life at university, and I made friends who are friends for life, and I really hope that's the case with, our students as well.
Speaker 1 Well, Sam, that was wonderful. Thank you very much for being my guest today.
Speaker 2 Thank you very much for having me. It's been a pleasure.