Looking back over the last term

Colin Melville, Head of Medical Education

Christmas is almost upon us. 2013 and 2014 cohorts have already started their break and others will follow shortly. I'm sorry I haven’t been able to meet everyone, but on behalf of all the MB ChB team I do want to wish you all a happy Christmas break.

We've been quite busy during the last term, with the refreshed curriculum now well into its second year, and changes too for those still on the pre-2013 curriculum. The Dean has hosted a number of student breakfasts throughout this term in the Trusts (thank you to our NHS partners for organising these), and we've had a positive and productive SSLC meeting.

We also had a huge amount of useful feedback from our own ‘NSS’ survey at the end of the last academic year. As a direct result of these we are continuing to make and/or influence changes for the benefit of students.

Here’s a few examples:

• We continue to roll out a peer observation for our teaching faculty, accompanied by lecture feedback from students, which the 2014 cohort have already contributed to. Expect to see more of this: we are trying to be careful to balance the need to evaluate the quality of teaching, whilst not over-surveying students
• We continue to update the ‘data-reveal’ following summative assessments to improve the information contained in this feedback
• We’ve negotiated wifi access for students based at UHCW to have (details on the MB ChB course home page)

• We will provide a mock IPE and FPE MCQ paper for 2012 and 2011 cohorts respectively.
• We have enhanced the revision block for our finalists, developed in partnership with the NHS, including a plan to offer regular mock OSLER clinical assessments in preparation for the clinical FPE
• UHCW has made some changes to the undergraduate admin team which should improve communication between the UHCW office and students
• UHCW has been conducting focus groups to explore what further changes are needed to enhance the student experience

It was also a great pleasure for me to be able to host our annual student awards evening recently in which a number of students were recognised for their achievements on the course so far. Our Dean, Professor Winstanley did the honours in presenting the awards. Further awards will be presented to our finalists at graduation day in the summer.

Well, whatever you do during the Christmas break, I hope you have a peaceful and relaxing time, and look forward to seeing you again in the New Year.

If you have any thoughts on the last term that you'd like to share, please use the comments section below.