01.15 The newsletter of the Higher Education Academy Subject Centre for Medicine, Dentistry and Veterinary Medicine, Winter 2007

Issues and news on learning and teaching in medicine, dentistry and veterinary medicine

Print: ISSN 1740-8768

Online: ISSN 1479-523X

IN THIS ISSUE:

Accessibility essentials
Nottingham vet school
Game informed learning
Call for proposals - workshops and miniprojects - News of the major medical education conferences in 2008 - Call for NTFS individual nominations

There are some great tips from TechDis on how to make your documents more accessible - essential if you are uploading Word or Powerpoint documents into your VLE.Nottingham has set up its new vet school and we find out how that went. There is a fascinating article on game informed learning, one on raising awareness about mental health in the veterinary profession, and a plethora of conference and workshop reports from a busy academic summer. If you have something you would like to submit, we love getting unsolicited articles: email suzanne@medev.ac.uk or call 0191 222 5888.

Suzanne Hardy
Senior Advisor (Information)

STOP PRESS! Congratulations to the e-course team at the University of Birmingham School of Dentistry on winning the ‘ICT initiative of the year’ at the recent Times Higher Education Supplement Awards. Giles Perryer who leads the ecourses team, had double reason to celebrate having won the national DDU Dentist Teacher of the Year award earlier in the month.

Plagiarism, practicalities and practice
Dr Fiona Duggan, Senior Advisor,Academy/JISC academic integrity service
Journal clubs - a valuable contribution to undergraduate education
Richard Thomson,Henry Jefferson, 5th year medical students;Adam Farrier, 4th year medical student, University of Liverpool;David Brigden, Professor of Health Sciences Education, University of Chester
Postgraduate certificate in higher education and teaching - reflections and resistance
Dr Aisling Keane,Teaching Fellow,Division of Basic Medical Sciences/Anatomy,Queen’s University Belfast
Nottingham veterinary school: beginning afresh
Professor Malcolm Cobb, Professor of Comparative Veterinary Medicine, University of Nottingham
How well prepared are newly-qualified doctors for Foundation Training
Dr Catherine Hyde, Foundation Doctor, Salford Royal NHS Foundation Trust;Dr Stevie Agius, Senior Research Associate, North Western Deanery;Dr Jaine Shacklady, Foundation Doctor, Salford Royal NHS Foundation Trust; Professor Tim Dornan,Director of Medical Education and Consultant Physician, Salford Royal NHS Foundation Trust; Dr Jon Miles,Associate Postgraduate Dean and Consultant Physician,North Western Deanery
Game informed learning
Michael Begg, eLearning Manager, Learning Technology Section, College of Medicine and Veterinary Medicine, The University of Edinburgh
Workshop report:"Grassroots" special interest group support for national initiatives in medical education
Jennifer Cleland, Lead,Medical Education Research, University of Aberdeen
Raising awareness of mental health in the veterinary profession
Nick Short, Professional Studies Module Leader,The Royal Veterinary College, London, John Somers, Honorary Fellow, School of Arts, Languages and Literatures, University of Exeter
VetLife.org.uk: Information and support for veterinary professionals
Teaching and assessing clinical skills (TACS)
Dr Reg Dennick,Dr Ed Fitzgerald,Dr David Matheson, Medical Education Unit,Medical School, University of Nottingham
The accessibility essentials of Microsoft Word and PowerPoint
Dr Simon Ball and Sue Harrison, JISC TechDis Service
Mental health in higher education - lessons from the first four years
Jill Anderson, Senior Project Officer,mhhe
The European Interprofessional Education Network (EIPEN): News and progress
Dr Marion Helme, IPE Projects and CETL Liaison, Higher Education Academy Health Sciences and Practice Subject Centre, King’s College London
Common misconceptions of veterinary careers
Gillian Brown, Education Advisor, Higher Education Academy Subject Centre for Medicine,Dentistry and Veterinary Medicine
Conference report: EIPEN 2007: Learning together to work together
Dr Megan Quentin-Baxter,Director (Acting),Higher Education Academy Subject Centre for Medicine, Dentistry and Veterinary Medicine - **Conference report:Veterinary assessment - where’s the evidence?**
Susan Rhind, Professor of Veterinary Education,University of Edinburgh
Conference report:AMEE 2007
Arnold Somersunderam, St. George’s, University of London
The MEDINE Conference 2007: A student's perspective
Dr Sarah Dolling and Charlotte Mackay, Faculty of Medicine and Dentistry, University of Bristol, United Kingdom

Plagiarism, practicalities and penalties

Dr Fiona Duggan, Senior Advisor, Academy/JISC academic integrity service

Advances in technology have resulted in the facility to copy work electronically with increasing ease.These advances and their potential for misuse are viewed with growing concern throughout the education sector.

In 2002, the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) established a Plagiarism Advisory Service (JISCPAS) to provide advice and guidance on all aspects of plagiarism prevention and detection to UK Higher Education Institutions and Further Education Colleges. From the outset the service promoted the adoption of an integrated approach to plagiarism prevention that required consideration of institutional policy and procedures, teaching practice and the development of students’ study and essay writing skills.

The practicalities of avoiding plagiarism can sometimes be difficult for students to comprehend. Although, plagiarism detection software is designed to identify specific instances of plagiarism in student work it can, however, be used to help educate students about the need for, and mechanics of, accurate referencing and citation. The originality reports produced by the Turnitin UK software, for example, will not only demonstrate where citation has been inadequate, but will also indicate if particular types of resources are causing problems for the individual student. In addition, the visual elements of the report clearly highlight where patch writing has occurred, and thereby provide an opportunity for both student and lecturer to discuss the requirements of academic writing in a constructive and timely manner. Utilising detection software tools in formative assignments can help to redress the problems of inadequate referencing and citation before bad practice becomes entrenched.

Where plagiarism is identified, however, a recent study by JISCPAS considering the range and nature of penalties applied in UK HEIs has highlighted the need for a transparent and consistent approach within institutions to the allocation of penalties. The Academic Misconduct Benchmarking Research (AMBeR) project identified a range of 25 potential penalties available in cases of student plagiarism that ranged from an informal warning to expulsion, with 12.7% of the institutions surveyed listing a fine as a potential penalty. The research further revealed that of the 153 institutions included in the final analysis the regulations in 28.8% of the institutions allowed the full range of penalties to be applied in any given circumstance, a further 30.7% of institutional regulations differentiated applicable penalties with regard to the previous history or perceived severity of the infringement, whilst a further 19.6% of institutions surveyed employed a penalty allocation policy with a high degree of specificity that considered multiple factors. The second phase of the project, which is currently underway, seeks to determine current practice in the sector with a questionnaire survey of UK HEIs to identify the number and range of penalties applied in an academic year.

In 2002 there was a reluctance within the sector to acknowledge the precise nature of the problem facing UK HEIs in relation to student plagiarism, however, the response from the sector to the AMBeR project clearly suggests that in 2007 institutions have recognised the nature of the problem. Publication of the findings of the second phase of the project will undoubtedly be instrumental in helping institutions achieve a consistent and transparent approach in the sector.

For more information please contact fiona.duggan@heacademy.ac.uk

http://www.turnitin.com 2 Tennant P, Rowell G, Duggan F, (2007). Academic Misconduct Benchmarking Research Project: Part 1: The range and spread of penalties available for student plagiarism among UK Higher Education Institutions. http://www.jiscpas.ac.uk/AMBeR/index.php (Accessed 22/11/07)

Journal clubs - a valuable contribution to undergraduate education

Richard Thomson,Henry Jefferson, 5th year medical students; Adam Farrier, 4th year medical student, University of Liverpool David Brigden, Professor of Health Sciences Education, University of Chester

In many hospitals journal clubs are a regular feature of their educational programme.No two operate in the same way but the more effort that is devoted to their organisation and content, the greater the likely participation and educational value. For undergraduates following a PBL curriculum where they have had to become self directed life long learners or a more traditional undergraduate course there can be many benefits.

Successful journal clubs generally have a designated leader and participation is often compulsory! Objectives are set on the basis of the needs of those attending. The consensus among students and trainees might be to prepare for an examination or to help with the management of relevant clinical problems; whereas seniors who might attend may wish to focus on keeping up to date with recent developments. The benefits of a journal club are listed below:

Keeps you up to date with developments in your field.
Enables ideas to be discussed and freely debated with colleagues.
Provides an opportunity to review specific clinical issues.
Promotes evidence based medicine and allows development of an analytical approach to problems.
Enhances critical appraisal skills such as appropriate methodology, statistic tests and conclusions.
Can provide an excellent forum for teaching.
Provides guidance on how to plan, conduct and write up a report or research project.

When should they be held?

The advice is not too often, not too long and at a convenient time and place. A journal club for 2 hours on a Friday evening is not likely to be popular! A journal club held on a monthly basis should work well. The level of attendance tends to correlate with provision of food, especially if the meeting is early morning or at lunchtime. So this should be taken into consideration when arranging a meeting!

Format?

If most learning takes place within the first 20 minutes, then presentation and discussion of three topics over 45 to 60 minutes is long enough. Papers to be discussed should be distributed in advance to allow some pre-reading around the subject before the discussion. Students and trainees should be encouraged to present papers on a rotational basis. They should focus on a relevant topic and start by reviewing the subject area and rationale for the publication before summarising the methodology, results and conclusion.

Different types of publications should be reviewed covering a range of topics, for example a major research article comparing treatment modalities, a case series describing an unusual complication and a brief article on how to perform a practical procedure. Having some sessions identified as critical appraisal is particularly relevant at both undergraduate level and for F1/F2 trainees as well as for those about to take membership examinations.

In order that all attending get the most out of the session there should be wide participation by posing questions to individual members of the group, or by designating participants to criticise a paper. Participating members should feel free to provide there own opinions, allowing for free debate. Here the presence of seniors who can speak from experience in the face of an esoteric piece of research is invaluable. Varying the format of a session is important eg split participants into smaller groups, solve a problem collectively or demonstrate a task. However, whatever the content immediate feedback on each presentation should be offered immediately.

It is particularly important that there is an experienced facilitator who can direct the discussion to focus on the most relevant areas and explain any ambiguities related to the methodology (including understanding of statistics), results or conclusions.

Journal clubs are a fun way to learn and have much to offer to the medical student.

For more information please contact brigdend@liverpool.ac.uk

Postgraduate certificate in higher education and teaching - reflections and resistance

Dr Aisling Keane,Teaching Fellow,Division of Basic Medical Sciences/Anatomy,Queen’s University Belfast

**An increasing number of universities are beginning to recognise the need to develop a set of recognised qualifications in higher education teaching.This article outlines the attitude of academics towards attending such courses and in particular highlights the author’s experience of attending the Postgraduate Certificate in Higher Education and Teaching (PGCHET) offered by Queen’s University Belfast (QUB).**

Reflective practice

The idea of reflective practice was completely unknown to me prior to this year. As a relatively inexperienced lecturer, I was more concerned with how I would be perceived, rather than how I could best relay my knowledge of a subject to my students. However, my goal to be seen as a sage on stage changed dramatically in my first year of teaching at QUB. The impetus for this change came from attending the Postgraduate Certificate in Higher Education and Teaching (PGCHET) offered by the university. Throughout the PGCHET, I was exposed to educational theory, the central dogma of which was the process of teaching rather than the simple evaluation of teaching.

Good teaching relates to how the subject is best learned by a student and to promote this, to understanding how it can be best taught by the teacher. Ramsden defined the idea of reflective practice in teaching as *finding out about students’ misunderstandings, intervening to change them and creating a context of learning which encourages students to actively engage with the subject matter.* This was further expanded on by Day who placed more emphasis on the need of teachers to internalise and personalise their own theories of teaching.

Teacher training at QUB

The ethos behind teacher training in higher education is of continued reflection and evaluation of personal teaching practice. Until recently, academic staff were often employed because of their research background, with teaching sometimes regarded as a peripheral activity. However, when the Dearing report highlighted the need to develop a set of professional standards and recognised qualifications in higher education teaching, QUB became more dedicated to improving teaching practice. Thus in 2004 completion of the PGCHET was made a key feature of the probationary requirements for new teaching fellows, regardless of their teaching experience.

One would imagine that any teacher interested in learning and education would relish the opportunity to improve his or her teaching skills, but this is not always the case. The required attendance at such courses and the establishment of previous recognised qualifications can be met with illfeeling by experienced staff who may be affronted by having to attend. The attitude among some participants was that while the course was good, it should only be compulsory for inexperienced academics, new to dealing with students and untrained in lecture preparation and presentation. The QUB PGCHET provoked some interesting debate and at times quite intense discourse on the requirement for established academics to complete it.

Some participants already had over ten years of teaching experience from a variety of universities, and consistently received complimentary reviews and respectable exam results from students, clear evidence of a successful educationalist. The time spent at the PGCHET and completing the assignments should instead be spent on pursuits with higher value and recognition such as pure research.

The role of teaching in a university

Universities have two main responsibilities; to create new knowledge and to teach students. While third level institutions have a well-established reputation for advanced research activity, it is only within the last decade that academic governing councils have begun to focus more intently on their student body and the student experience of teaching and learning. To improve the standard of teaching, the UK Staff and Educational Development Association (SEDA) developed a specified curriculum to emphasise the values of promoting innovation and good practice.

Accordingly, an increasing number of universities are now demanding that all lecturers, irrespective of their level of experience, develop their knowledge and skills in teaching and learning and engage in reflective practice. The consequences of this can already be felt at QUB. As a result of the PGCHET there is a burgeoning of enthusiasm among staff, and an eagerness to implement new teaching strategies is percolating through the university. A new philosophy is emerging; one that encourages development of teaching approaches which stimulate students to become active learners in their own right. This is a key element for medical education in Northern Ireland, where medical and dental entrants may be products of a didactic secondary education system.

As teachers in higher education we are beginning to break the mould and move away from traditional didactic teaching to a more horizontal focus of student-centered, self-directed learning. In order for our universities to grow, we need to evolve the way we think about our students and challenge the views of some colleagues and managers. Students are not (and should not be) seen as an inconvenience or distraction to research, but as the researchers and investigators of our future. For more information please contact a.keane@qub.ac.uk

References

Kuit JA, Reay G, Freeman R. Experiences of reflective teaching. Active Learning in Higher Education 2001; 2:128-142.
Ramsden P. Learning to Teach in Higher Education. London: Routledge, 1992.
Day C. Reflection: a necessary but not sufficient condition for professional development. British Educational Research Journal, 1993; 1 9:83-93.
Dearing R. The Dearing Report. The National Committee of Enquiry into Higher Education, 1997.

Nottingham veterinary school: beginning afresh

Professor Malcolm Cobb, Professor of Comparative Veterinary Medicine, University of Nottingham

Since the appointment of Professor Gary England as the Dean of the University of Nottingham School of Veterinary Medicine and Science in January 2005, considerable progress has been made, and the first intake of students started in September 2006.

Curriculum development

The opportunity to develop a veterinary school curriculum from scratch is a unique one. The task has been approached by starting the planning with the end product of the course in mind. Using outcome measures such as the RCVS core competences required of a graduating veterinary surgeon, the course has been mapped backwards to decide what needs to be delivered in the final year, then what is required in year four, and so on, to the beginning of the course.

The process of curriculum development has involved staff from other Schools in the University as well as specialists from within the veterinary and related professions, such as veterinary nurses and farriers. In addition, a significant survey of practicing veterinary surgeons has been undertaken which has provided information about the emphasis that particular subjects should have within the curriculum.

Furthermore, many of the profession’s specialist divisions have been consulted in order to understand the important issues that face it, and where in the curriculum these subjects might be covered. The result of this process is a programme that is clinically-integrated from year one with subjects such as clinical examination and imaging techniques being introduced in week one of the course. To facilitate the development of a clinically-integrated course, an early decision was that the Nottingham Vet School will have only clinical divisions. Divisions of Veterinary Medicine, Veterinary Surgery and Animal Health and Welfare are responsible for curriculum delivery from year one.

Overall, the development process has resulted in the elimination of some of the curriculum over-crowding that is so commonly described by other veterinary and medical schools. Consequently it has been possible to use the Nottingham Medical School intercalation model in which students carry out a significant research project in year three of the course. Successful students graduate at the end of their third year with an integrated Bachelor’s degree (BVMedSci) and continue in the programme to graduate in year five with their professional clinical degrees, the BVM and BVS.

Curriculum delivery

The course is delivered principally in body system-based modules. In years one and two the students study clinical science modules delivered using a mixture of lectures and practical classes as well as small group facilitated sessions in dedicated small group teaching rooms and directed self-learning in which clinical material and case studies are used to illustrate the importance of the basic sciences.

A research project is undertaken in the first semester of year three, before the students study clinical modules in years three and four. The programme also includes a bespoke personal and professional skills module, which runs throughout all of the first four years. Appropriate specialists from within the veterinary and other related professions play a significant role in the delivery of the course. The final year is lecture-free and comprises clinical rotations, which start in the summer of year four.

The model for the delivery of clinical experience is unusual in that a decision has been made not to build a referral hospital on the University campus.

Clinical experience will be delivered through a series of clinical practice modules in which clinical teaching will take place in a veterinary hospital/practice/laboratory situation. Each of these rotations is at a Clinical Associate institution with which collaborative links are being established. In each institution students are under the supervision of university academic staff placed at, and working within, the institution. This model differs from many other veterinary schools in that the caseload will comprise first and second opinion cases in a facility that may not be owned by the university.

Otherwise the quality of student education, supervision and quality assurance by university academic staff will not differ from that which is delivered elsewhere within the University or in other veterinary schools. The belief is that this process will give the students an opportunity to gain significant firsthand practical experience through which they will develop the confidence and skills required to deal with the types of case they will typically meet when they graduate.

Buildings

The delivery of the very successful Animal Science degree courses by the School of Bioscience at Sutton Bonington means that extensive facilities already exist on campus, including a state of the art dairy unit opened in 2003 and facilities for handling the 350 ewe sheep flock. The main academic building was opened in August and contains a lecture theatre with a capacity of 400, a large seminar room, 11 small group teaching rooms and a teaching laboratory together with staff offices and research laboratories. In October the clinical teaching building opened - this contains a dissection room, which can hold a whole class, two further teaching laboratories, seminar rooms, a museum and a cadaver surgery suite. The clinical teaching building also contains a clinical skills laboratory and dog and cat kennels. The clinical skills laboratory is a versatile room in which students will be able to practice a number of different clinical skills from the first year of the course.

In year three the students will study a series of clinical skills modules. The School has a smallholding on site, where the students manage the School’s sheep, cattle and chickens, which are kept for handling and anatomy practical classes. In November the stables and ménage opened, these are available to students who want to keep a horse at the School and are used to hold large animal practical classes. Plans are also well advanced for a number of building projects to be completed at the Clinical Associate institution’s premises to provide facilities for student teaching during the clinical rotations.

Conclusion

The veterinary schools in the UK provide a world-class veterinary education with each of the schools providing opportunities for veterinary students to develop the attributes and skills that they will need in different ways. As well as delivering a rounded veterinary education, the objectives of the clinically-integrated curriculum at Nottingham are to provide graduates with practical skills, significant experience of research and problem-solving abilities which will equip them well to meet the demands of the many professional opportunities available to them. For more information please contact malcom.cobb@nottingham.ac.uk

How well prepared are newly-qualified doctors for Foundation Training?

Dr Catherine Hyde, Foundation Doctor, Salford Royal NHS Foundation Trust
Dr Stevie Agius, Senior Research Associate,North Western Deanery
Dr Jaine Shacklady, Foundation Doctor, Salford Royal NHS Foundation Trust
Professor Tim Dornan,Director of Medical Education and Consultant Physician, Salford Royal NHS Foundation Trust
Dr Jon Miles,Associate Postgraduate Dean and Consultant Physician,North Western Deanery

August 2005 saw the implementation of a novel postgraduate curriculum intervention nationwide across the United Kingdom. We aimed to research how newly-qualified doctors perceive their preparedness for Foundation Training and the process of their transition from student to doctor.Results focus on (i) perceived ability in applying skills and knowledge in the clinical environment, (ii) levels of confidence in transition to the role of Foundation Doctor and (iii) the importance of guidance from senior colleagues in enabling and enhancing the preparedness of trainees for their role.

Background

Foundation Training is a two-year residency programme representing a shift in implementing medical education to a cohesive medical programme for the whole of medical training as:

competency based;
outcome focused;
formalised feedback, appraisal and assessment systems (supervision);
explicit curriculum.

The implementation allowed the opportunity to obtain evidence about the effectiveness of education, training and supervision within the framework of the early implementation of an outcome based curriculum intervention.

Methods

Data were collected from trainees 10-12 weeks into their initial training post (FY1) in three large hospitals in North West England, serving a total population of 800,000. Five focus groups were performed using a semistructured schedule of questions, and paper-based questionnaires were distributed to all trainees to permit triangulation of results. The questionnaire consisted of 32, 7 point Likert scales, supported by free text comments. Quantitative responses were collated to form a grand mean, and this was used to test for percentage agreement with the statements. Focus groups were recorded, transcribed and subjected to content analysis by a team of researchers for recurrent themes, and these were triangulated with qualitative data from questionnaires. Coding was assisted by the use of NVivo.

Three interconnected themes were identified:

ABILITY in applying skills and knowledge in the clinical environment. Although 75% doctors felt they had adequate knowledge and skills to begin training, key themes were:

Lack of preparedness for on-call duties. We started on nights and it was horrible, absolutely petrifying, you were out there in the big wide world, on the wards, on your own... making decisions when you had never even signed a prescription before.
Sense of the necessary maturation process.
Clinical teaching targeted as ability enhancing.
39% of doctors felt their formal education was not relevant: I think teaching would be better if it was more clinically relevant to the problems that we encounter, like how to deal with the breathless patient or how to deal with headache and pain.

CONFIDENCE in transition to the role of Foundation Doctor and the factors which help or hinder this. Only 55% of doctors felt confident in beginning foundation training:

Consolidation and induction: *You know the hospital was trying to prepare you, but after three hours of talks you just couldn’t take in any more information. We were scared about starting work the next day, so I switched off after a while.*
Familiarity with Hospital geography & systems.
Support from clinical team - Over 80% felt learning and work were well supported: I think the support from the rest of the team is really useful and I have got a good team. My SHO is fantastic and fun as well, and that makes a difference to your working life. The nurses on our wards are generally just very good.

GUIDANCE from senior colleagues in enabling and enhancing the preparedness of trainees for their role:

Contact with senior colleagues.
90% felt confident in their supervisor’s ability to appraise them. However, level of contact is variable, and sometimes speciality dependent.
Feedback and appraisal - data demonstrated strongly positive attitudes to informal feedback: My SHOs are absolutely brilliant. They take me aside for two hours twice a week to go through things.

However, formal supervision within the curriculum was viewed as a burden, with:

73% struggling to maintain a portfolio;
71% having difficulty arranging assessments.

Conclusion

Within this novel curriculum, newly qualified doctors’ concerns about preparedness and transition are echoed by previous research: • Trainees’ concerns with their clinical skills and knowledge highlight ways in which education and training can better prepare doctors for their early workplace experiences.1,2 • Early practical measures are needed to increase trainees’ confidence in dealing with their transition into workplace learning.5 • Trainees benefit from more regular guidance and supervision from senior clinicians on their abilities.3,4 In addition, barriers to formal supervision and variation in contact with seniors need to be addressed in this new curriculum. For more information please contact s.agius@nwpgmd.nhs.uk

References

Lowry SR and Buckley EG. Conference proceedings on the transition from medical student to medical practitioner. ASME: Edinburgh, 1997.
Evans DE, Wood DF and Roberts CM (2004) The effect of an extended hospital induction on perceived confidence and assessed clinical skills of newly qualified pre-registration house officers. Medical Education, 2004; 38:998-1001.
Goldacre MJ, Lambert T, Evans J, Turner G. Preregistration house officers’ view on whether their experiences at medical school prepared them well for their jobs: national questionnaire survey. BMJ, 2003; 326:1011-2.
Hesketh EA, Allan MS, Harden RM and Macpherson SG. New doctors’ perceptions of their educational development during their first year of postgraduate training. Medical Teacher, 2003; 25(1):67-76.
Paice E, Rutter H, Wetherell M, Winder B & McManus IC. Stressful incidents, stress and coping strategies in the pre-registration house officer year. Medical Education, 2002; 36:56-65.

Game informed Learning

Michael Begg, eLearning Manager, Learning Technology Section, College of Medicine and Veterinary Medicine,The University of Edinburgh

The increasingly restrictive measures governing working hours, student access to patients and crowded curricula, coupled with a healthcare system involving much shorter inpatient stays - and, consequently, further reducing opportunities for student access - has resulted in an increasing reliance within healthcare education upon alternative ways of exposing students to the necessary experiential activity that bridges the gap between didactic knowledge and fitness to practice.

Simulation training and virtual patients are two widely used methods for addressing these issues. Increasingly, however, educators are looking towards games - computer games, in particular - as offering the potential for richly engaging, compelling, experiential learning activities.

Game informed learning

Game based learning proposes that learning activities may be contained within - or constitute the content of - a computer game. Whatever the benefits of game based learning may be the approach continues to remain problematic in terms of cost and there are ongoing concerns with ensuring that the player motivation within these games remains intrinsic to the task to be learned.

The University of Edinburgh has adopted a game informed approach to many of these activities. Game based and game informed approaches have many similar aspects; for example they both recognise the importance of according the player a character identity within the activity, the importance of allowing the players interactions with the activity to result in a consequential effect upon the environment, the importance of immediate and intrinsic feedback (see also Begg et al., 2005, Begg et al., 2007, Begg et al., 2006). However there is a central difference in that a game based approach will result in a game, first and foremost, whereas a game informed approach remains essentially a learning activity that uses recognisably game-like elements (as appropriate).

Labyrinth, an online authoring and delivery application for branching case scenarios capable of delivering these types of activities has been developed at the University of Edinburgh’s Learning Technology Section within the College of Medicine and Veterinary Medicine. In the 18 months of the project’s development to date it has been used in a number of contexts, locally, nationally and internationally.

Within the University of Edinburgh Labyrinth has been used on the MBChB to develop virtual patient scenarios for program components relating to clinical skills training and prepare students for simulation training activities. Within the Royal (Dick) Veterinary School a slightly different tack has been to adopt the creation of Labyrinth cases to be a learning activity in itself. Student groups undertaking an elective in tropical animal health, collaborate on a case scenario to be authored in Labyrinth. Formal assessment partly takes the form of clinical staff playing the case.

Building a game informed community

Using a web service and local client model the Centre for Medical and Healthcare Education at St George’s, University of London (who are also collaborating with future versions of Labyrinth) are able to create and deliver Labyrinth cases for their own medical programme, whilst further afield Labyrinth has been used in Scottish Executive funded workshops in Blantyre, Malawi, as a vehicle through which to accommodate changes in the curriculum from a didactic to a more case based, experiential model making use of virtual patients. Labyrinth cases aligned to a wiki-based knowledgebase also forms the heart of an innovative online Masters course in surgical sciences developed by the Royal College of Surgeons in Edinburgh in partnership with the University of Edinburgh. The NHS are also making use of Labyrinth cases in development of web-based support tools for employees and relatives of individuals affected by strokes.

Labyrinth is presently jointly managed by the Learning Technology Section in Edinburgh and Northern Ontario School of Medicine, Canada. A core version of Labyrinth, called OpenLabyrinth will, in time, be made available to the community as part of the Source Forge open source framework. In the meantime, as the Labyrinth application and the associated processes and approaches of game informed learning continue to amass activity - and, consequently, evaluation data - we continue to work with existing educational partners and other interested parties through virtual patient workshops, case creation activities, and knowledge sharing.

For more information please contact michael.begg@ed.ac.uk

References

Begg M, Dewhurst D, MacLeod H, (2005). Game Informed Learning: Applying computer game processes to Higher Education. Innovate, 1

Begg M, Ellaway R, Dewhurst D, MacLeod H, (2006). Virtual Patients: considerations of narrative and gameplay. In Burmester M, Gerhard D, Thissen F, (Eds.), Digital Game Based Learning: 4th International Symposium for Information Design. Stuttgart Media University, Universitatsverlag Karlsruhe.

Begg M, Ellaway R, Dewhurst D, MacLeod H, (2007). Transforming professional healthcare narratives into structured game informed learning activities, Innovate, 3.

Workshop report: “Grassroots” special interest group support for national initiatives in medical education

Jennifer Cleland, Lead,Medical Education Research, University of Aberdeen

We wished to initiate a local forum - a medical education special interest group (SIG) - to provide encouragement and support to staff new to medical education activities, or who have a tentative interest in this area.Our rationale was that local support is essential to develop, support and sustain medical education as a viable special interest.Ultimately, local groups can help their members work towards membership of the Academy of Medical Educators, as well as monitoring quality of medical education development activities.

Format and aims

We decided on a evening workshop, starting at 6pm, preceded by a light buffet, in order to avoid clashing with clinical commitments. Our event was titled Meeting the challenges of medical education: A Special Interest Group. The format of the evening, including details of the guest speaker, was made clear on the advertisment. This was sent out (followed by a reminder) via group email lists to all members of staff involved in delivering postgraduate and undergraduate education, all FY and SHO/ST doctors, and undergraduate students who had applied for medical education summer studentships or electives. We asked for confirmation of attendance due to room size and buffet. Those who were unable to commit in advance but hoped to attend were encouraged to do so.

Our aims from this event were to:

gauge interest in a medical education SIG;
elicit participant views of the remit, goals and next steps of a medical education SIG.

The main feature of the event was a keynote speech on professionalism by our invited guest speaker, Professor Trudie Roberts, University of Leeds Medical School. After questions to Professor Roberts, the second part of the evening involved structured small group work, focussing on:

i) what participants wanted from a medical education SIG;

ii) how we could best deliver this;

iii) how we could raise the profile of medical education within the clinical setting.

Results

Thirty-five clinical and academic staff from primary and secondary care attended. Participants came from undergraduate medicine, FY, FTSTA, RTT, Specialist Registrar and Consultant grades, as well as the Deans of Undergraduate and Postgraduate Medicine, and the Medical Director. The audience included experienced medical educators, but more junior members of staff and new faces were also well represented.

We gathered data on two sets of outcomes: Those arising from the small group work, and more formal feedback on the event (via an evaluation form).

The first question to participants was what they wanted from a medical education SIG. Distilling the feedback to common themes identified the following: needs assessment and skills training (e.g. teaching the teachers, giving feedback); learning about new developments in medical education; recognising and sharing excellence, mentoring and role modelling; maintaining and renewing enthusiasm for teaching; networking; variety in terms of events and topics; and a form for improving teaching. Participants also highlighted the importance of legitimising medical education as a recognised special interest.

Many different fora were suggested for delivering the above: Face-to-face sessions, eLearning, multi-disciplinary events; a news letter/email updates, role models, peer observation (with the explicit acknowledgement that different methods were needed depending on the precise topic). Recognition of learning/continued professional development (CPD) was requested - perhaps in the form of certificates of attendance.

The last question - raising the profile of medical education in the clinical setting - is perhaps the most interesting. Many responses centred on engaging with NHS management and breaking down university/NHS barriers to encourage explicit recognition of educational activities in job plans and promotions. The latter comment applied to both NHS and university promotions. Ways of achieving this included a lobbying group, awards for teaching, marketing (e.g. acknowledging local experts), more high profile events, but with the bottom line of getting those with power on side. Given that the Deans and the Medical Director attended this inaugural event, we made a good start on this front.

The atmosphere at the event was very positive, with lots of questions, high-energy small group discussions and no signs that people wanted to get home! This enthusiasm was reflected in the evaluation form where 95% rated the event as excellent or good and 5% as satisfactory. When asked about the most interesting or useful aspects of the meeting, roughly two-thirds of participants stated that this was Professor Robert’s talk and the discussion it stimulated, with the remaining third stating that it was the exchange of ideas enabled by the opportunities for discussion. Several people reported that the least useful aspect of the evening was shortage of time, reflected in other comments for more meetings and more speakers. Participants were also given a group of descriptors from which to select the words that best described this meeting. The most common descriptors circled were enjoyable (selected by 21 participants), stimulating (21), interesting (18), informative (14), worthwhile (13) and relevant (12).

Outcomes

Overall, the outcomes from this event, made possible by MEDEV funding, are very positive. We identified great enthusiasm for a medical education SIG, as well as clarifying what stakeholders would want from such a forum. We identified strategic issues, such as recognition for medical education activities by engaging key local players. We also learned that a good speaker attracts participants. However, it is also worth noting that, as is so often the case, those who participated in this event, were already enthusiastic about, and often already committed to, medical education. Raising the profile of medical education may, however, enable us to encourage more clinicians to take an active interest in this area. A second issue, which may be a local one, is that we did not have a good mechanism for contacting Specialist Registrars (SpRs). Information from those SpRs who did receive the invitation (more by luck than design) suggested that SpRs deliver much teaching, but feel unskilled in doing so. We need to identify a reliable means of reaching this group of staff. Our task now is to capitalise on the enthusiasm and ideas generated by this first meeting to maintain momentum and ensure the success of a local medical education SIG.

Acknowlegements

My thanks to Alan Denison, Hamish McKenzie and Jacqui Morrison for their input into the content and organization of the evening. For more information please contact jen.cleland@abdn.ac.uk

Raising awareness of mental health in the veterinary profession

Nick Short, Professional Studies Module Leader,The Royal Veterinary College, London
John Somers, Honorary Fellow, School of Arts, Languages and Literatures, University of Exeter

The suicide rate amongst UK vets is more than twice that of the medical profession, and four times greater than in the general population.Behind this statistic lies a much wider problem of anxiety, stress and depression affecting the lives of vets in practice.One approach to address this issue has been by working with undergraduates to assist them in anticipating the potential problems they may face after they have graduated, and to prepare them for how best to respond.

Topics such as depression, addiction and suicide can be difficult to address in a conventional lecture environment. At the RVC final year students have a dedicated one week professional studies module which includes presentations on mental health and addiction given by the Veterinary Health Support Programme. However, students have found such subjects uncomfortable to discuss, and hard to relate to personally.

Applied drama is an approach that has been successfully used with farmers to address stress and depression resulting from the 2002 foot and mouth outbreak. This medium was adapted by second year drama students at the University of Exeter to create a production which has now been performed in 2006 and 2007 at the RVC as well as in vet practices around the country. Applied drama Applied drama can be defined simply as: The use of dramatic activity to achieve, often premeditated, change in a given societal circumstance. The working process can be typified as follows:

research of the context in which the drama intervention will take place;
an understanding of the humans who inhabit it and the issues which affect their lives;
the construction of a dramatic experience that is structured to provide optimum conditions for participant change;
the delivery of that experience;
evaluation of the outcomes to judge the effectiveness of the intervention.

Drama’s power to change attitudes is rooted in the notion of intertextuality, the dynamic relationship of stories, is a form of interactive theatre which expects and supports audience members’ engagement with the story and its characters. To be effective, the performance must be authentic so that the audience feels the story captures the realities of their own experience. Applied drama practitioners also use targeting to select the audience, in this case vets and students.

Practice performance research

The first stage in developing involved drama students conducting in depth interviews with vets and students, enabling them to get a good understanding of the profession and some of the stresses and pressures that vets need to cope with in their working lives.

A 2001 veterinary graduate described the following experience in his first practice:

*I didn’t actually find the rota too bad because I had just graduated and I was single and so I just really wanted to work hard and do a good job. But I still worried about some of the work, like surgery. I worried a lot about doing harm... doing harm to an animal and getting into trouble with my employer or the RCVS. That was a burden that I carried around with me... worrying about getting things wrong and damaging one of the animals.*

The performance

The performance comprised a cast of about 10 students with a simple stage and a slide show backdrop. The production starts with a facilitator passing a backpack around the audience who are then asked to take out and describe individual items. For example, there is a letter of complaint from a farmer, an email from a veterinary ex-boyfriend in New Zealand and a packet of sleeping pills. It then transpires that the bag belongs to Rachel, a young veterinary graduate.

Rachel becomes centre stage, and sits down on a chair in front of the audience, sobbing. Attempts by the facilitator to ask her what is wrong don’t get anywhere. It is only when she asks her to look back and tell us why things got so bad that she agrees to show us a little of her life story. She takes us through a happy and horsey middle class childhood leading on to an exciting and varied life at vet school. Things only start to go wrong when she gets into practice and her friends fall away, her practice mentor starts coming on to her, she has a few difficult cases which go wrong and the New Zealand boyfriend dumps her. Suddenly she feels that nobody can help her and even her parents find it hard to come to terms with what their brilliant daughter has become.

At this point we reach full circle and Rachel is in front of the audience again, lost, desperate and looking at the barbiturate bottle. This is a tough moment for all of us as not only are many in tears but now we are also being asked to advise Rachel what she should do. We are able to call up some of the other actors playing in role to challenge them and see why they think things have gone so wrong. Then collectively we work out a plan of action and advise Rachel on how she might get help and find hope. This is where the impact of applied drama is so effective as not only does everybody feel that things are not hopeless but they would also know themselves what to do if they were in a similar position to Rachel.

At the end of the performance many people stay behind and talk to each other or the cast about what they have experienced. There is something quite special in seeing drama students, who have been trying to understand a vet’s life, talking to vet students, who have started to appreciate the skills arts students have, to capture their own lives in drama.

2007 graduate feedback

*From a student’s perspective it was a novel means of grasping our attention. Yes, mental health issues are circulating in the veterinary press all the time, and most of us are aware of them. But awareness does not necessarily lead on to provocative thought processes. Performing arts are often used to relay messages and in a university environment when all information is uniformly transmitted via a lecture format, this method immediately awakens interest. Walking away from the RVC production there was a real buzz of focussed conversation unlike that normally experienced on leaving the lecture theatre!*

Future development

There is a large amount of work involved in putting together a performance such as this. However, this has been more than compensated for by the value to our students. This year the production was kindly hosted by the LIVE CETL at the RVC but the challenge next year is to find funding for a national tour and to encourage other veterinary schools to get involved too. As a final thought, this might also be an interesting opportunity for other professions to adapt a similar approach to their own curriculum.

For more information please contact nshort@rvc.ac.uk or visit the web site at www.rvc.ac.uk/practiceimperfect which includes videos of the director, cats and vets in practice.

VetLife.org.uk

Information and support for veterinary professionals

The Veterinary Benevolent Fund (VBF) has launched a new support website as part of a series of initiatives aimed at improving the mental wellbeing of the veterinary profession.

Vetlife.org.uk is designed to make it easy for veterinary surgeons, nurses and students to find information about the different types of professional and emotional support available. This includes support provided by established veterinary care organisations such as Vet Helpline and the Veterinary Surgeons' Health Support Programme and trusted sources outside the profession such as Mind, the leading mental health charity, and the Samaritans.

The website was conceived after the VBF asked Dr Wendy Harrison to chair a Veterinary Support working party, formed from representatives of all the main veterinary organisations and the Samaritans, to look at what could be done to improve support to the profession. The impetus for the formation of the working party was the publication, in The Veterinary Record in October 2005, of research by Richard Mellanby that indicated that the suicide rate for the veterinary profession was four times higher than that of the general population and twice that of doctors and dentists.

Dr Harrison explained the thinking behind the concept of the website: We found that while many organisations were providing excellent support mechanisms for the veterinary profession people often didn’t know how or where to go in order to access that help. We are fully aware that when people are under stress then that’s not the time they are thinking most clearly or are able to start doing the research that’s needed. We felt that what would be most helpful was to provide a portal that brought together information on all these support mechanisms in one place. The most appropriate way to do that was to develop a website, namely, Vetlife.

The website has been funded by the VBF and will be run from their office in London, initially for a period of three years. It is hoped that it will grow and develop in response to feedback from the profession.

Dr Harrison added: Everyone at some stage in their career will go through difficult times, but support is available and now Vetlife has gone live, it will be easy to find and access.

For further information please contact info@vetlife.org.uk

Teaching and assessing clinical skills (TACS)

Dr Reg Dennick,Dr Ed Fitzgerald,Dr David Matheson, Medical Education Unit,Medical School, University of Nottingham

The development of practical skill based competence is an important feature of both undergraduate and postgraduate medical education; the days of see one, do one, teach one are over. In the past few years the need has grown markedly to demonstrate robust mechanisms to ensure that all undergraduate medical students and F1/F2 doctors are effectively taught and assessed on specific practical psychomotor skills.However, not all doctors are experienced in teaching skills effectively and many have limited knowledge of the variety of competence based assessment schemes currently in use.

In our Medical School at the University of Nottingham we have been running the Teaching Improvement Project (TIPs) course for over fifteen years, and have taught basic teaching skills and an introduction to some assessment concepts to well over a thousand doctors and others during that time. However, the demand for an easily available course directed at doctors who are teaching and assessing clinical skills has now led to the development of the one-day Teaching and Assessing Clinical Skills (TACS) course.

The TACS course has been developed by the authors from examples of best practice in the teaching and assessing of clinical skills and consists of a morning devoted to the theory and practice of clinical skills teaching followed by an afternoon concerned with assessment techniques. The course, aimed at groups of about twelve people, uses a variety of active learning methods including brief interactive presentations, small group discussions and activities, skill demonstrations and practice, video observations and evaluations.

The table overleaf shows the overall programme for the day. Participants are encouraged to activate their prior knowledge of teaching and learning clinical skills and are asked to bring a simple practical skill to teach in a triad. Participants can bring along any skill they choose, as long as it can be taught in about five minutes and is neither messy nor dangerous either in its execution or product. Within each triad, one person teaches the skill they have brought along to another person, while the third observes and then feeds back to both. No rules are given or suggested for this task and the debriefing reveals the range of teaching and feedback styles. Just in case a participant is in want of inspiration, a sheet of possible skills and instructions on how to do them is available.

After debriefing this experience, teaching next focuses on describing and explaining recognised techniques or protocols for teaching clinical skills, leading to the method advocated by the Royal College of Surgeons. This consists of five stages: conceptualisation, visualisation, verbalisation, practice and mastery. Many participants are familiar with this protocol, having been exposed to it during their training, including ILS, ALS and ATLS courses but they have not often had an opportunity to reflect on the rationale for its specific sequencing. The TACS course allows participants to analyse this protocol and to explore particular variants that might be more relevant to their own clinical teaching areas. This is followed by the highlight of the course: Learning how to make an origami shirt! This task was chosen as it neatly illustrates the steps in the RCS protocol with a degree of humour - especially with regard to the health and safety and ethical aspects of making an origami shirt.

Aims and objectives of TACS course

Aim:To enhance participants' competencies in teaching and assessing clinical skills.

Learning objectives:

Identify the features common to all forms of skills teaching
Use a protocol for skills teaching
Use feedback in teaching and assessing clinical skills
Choose an appropriate form of clinical skills assessment
Create and use assessment criteria in the assessment of clinical skills

Teaching and assessing clinical skills

Introduction
Activation of prior learning
Teaching a skill: in threes
Identifying common features of skills teaching

BREAK

Theory: RCS skills teaching method
Feedback: what does it mean to give feedback in the context of skills teaching?
Show video of skill being taught: discuss

LUNCH BREAK

Assessing practical skills
Activation of Prior Learning
Shows DOPS video and discuss
Outline variety of methods for assessing skills

BREAK

In threes construct assessment criteria for abdominal examination
Swap assessment criteria and use while watching abdominal examination video
Discuss reliability of assessment criteria
Closure

The afternoon concentrates on assessment of clinical skills and again begins by activating participants’ own knowledge of the principles of skill assessment including core concepts such as validity, reliability, reproducibility and feasibility. Videos of non-clinical and clinical skills are used to encourage the group to explore the criteria that can be used to assess practical competence. Several assessment methods are discussed and evaluated: OSCEs, OSLERs, DOPS and MinCEX. Finally, pairs of participants develop a set of criteria that could be used to assess a trainee performing an abdominal examination. These are swapped with other pairs who then have to use them to assess a video of this skill. A discussion of the problems of developing and using these criteria is the final phase of the course.

It is difficult to construct a simple one-day course that will cover clinical skill teaching and assessment in an active and interesting way but we feel that the TACS course fits the bill. Evaluations, so far, have been very positive with participants glad of the opportunity to explore skill teaching and assessment concepts and methods more deeply. We hope that we are creating a growing number of teachers who can go back into clinical practice and spread the word about skill teaching methods and who can more effectively and thoughtfully apply the assessment tools that are currently being used.

For more about the TACS and TIPS courses and how to enrol see: www.nottingham.ac.uk/ medical-school/tips/home.html For more information please contact reg.dennick@nott.ac.uk

The accessibility essentials of Microsoft®Word and PowerPoint

Dr Simon Ball and Sue Harrison, JISC TechDis Service

Accessibility is no longer something considered only appropriate for disabled students.Accessible and inclusive teaching and learning can be of great benefit to a large majority of learners, both disabled and non-disabled.Having resources available in electronic form can be a first step in moving towards a more inclusive way of working. Ensuring staff have an understanding of the accessibility benefits built into everyday technologies, such as word processing and presentation software, is imperative in ensuring an inclusive and accessible learning experience.This article highlights just a few of the tips and explanations featured in the publications.

TechDis accessibility essentials series

The JISC TechDis service has produced a series of guides aimed at making everyday tasks and documents more accessible. These are available at no charge to staff working in UK higher or further education.

Accessibility Essentials 1: Making electronic documents more readable;
Accessibility Essentials 2: Writing accessible electronic documents with Microsoft® Word;
Accessibility Essentials 3: Creating accessible presentations;
Accessibility Essentials 4: Writing accessible electronic documents with Adobe® Acrobat Professional - an article on this new publication will appear in the next edition of 01.

For more information on the TechDis accessibility essentials series see www.techdis.ac.uk/accessibilityessentials

Some quick accessibility gains when using Microsoft®Word

Best practice with font styles

There are a number of good practice techniques which should be implemented when writing any documents. For example:

use a minimum size 12, and if the document is to be read online, use a Sans Serif font e.g. Verdana, Arial, Trebuchet;
avoid excessive use of capitalised, underlined or italicised text;
ensure all text is left aligned, not justified as justified text can lead to some users focusing on the rivers of white space between the words, not the words themselves.

Best practice with structuring documents

Microsoft® Word has an inbuilt structuring system which should be used when creating any document. Heading tags can be used to denote headings and sub-headings thus providing an intrinsic structure. When creating a document use the Styles and Formatting toolbar to create appropriate heading for your document. From the Style box in the formatting menu a user can choose an appropriate heading and style for the structure of a document.

The ability to navigate a document by structural headings will benefit all users but give exceptional benefits to a range of disabled people. For example:

Visually impaired users may rely on a screen magnifier for reading. A long document can be awkward to navigate through a screen magnifier, requiring much horizontal and vertical scrolling. A properly structured document can be navigated via the Document Map (View > Document Map), which is also accessible to the screen reader technology used by blind learners.
Clicking the Document Map will allow the user to expand and contract headings or jump to the relevant section of a large document.
People with poorer English skills (for example, British Sign Language users or others for whom English is a second language), or those with dyslexia who find reading extended passages difficult, can extract the key concepts before negotiating the denser text.
A motor impaired user can access the whole document with minimal keyboard or mouse movement.

Some quick accessibility gains when using Microsoft® PowerPoint

Best practice with PowerPoint

Write no more on a slide than you would on a postcard. Placing too much information on a slide will result in the audience not listening to the presenter as they try and follow all slide information. Two slides with 3 bullets on each slide will be more effective than one slide with 6 bullets.
Ensure images and animations are used appropriately. A continuous animation will only serve to distract the audience from the information portrayed. Any images used for exemplification of concept should be explained by the presenter, for the benefit of anyone who cannot see or interpret the visual image.
The colours chosen for the text and slide background should provide adequate contrast, dark blues and creams have been shown to be particularly legible. If presenting in a light room, display dark coloured text on a light coloured background. Conversely, if presenting in a darkened room, ensure the background colour is dark and the text light. If using a dark background ensure the weight of text is increased (e.g. use bold).
If the PowerPoint is to be placed online, always use the inbuilt notes field. The notes field can be located beneath the slide area within the edit view and should carry both a copy of the text from the slide and any additional notes of explanation that you would give verbally if delivering the presentation. Not only will this make the file more usable to learners in general, but screen reading technology can access the notes field, but not the slide content itself.
Use the inbuilt slide design options within Microsoft® PowerPoint wherever possible. The slide design options can be accessed from Format > Slide Layout. By using these slide layout options all text inserted will appear within the presentation outline and will thus be accessible when the document is exported.

Best practice with presentation technique

When physically presenting a session there are a number of tips and techniques which should be used to ensure that you are able to satisfy the needs of as many members of the audience as possible.

Face forward at all times when speaking, you may not know whether there are any lip readers in the audience. Avoid giving verbal information whilst the room is darkened e.g. to watch a video.
If available use a microphone, it may be connected to an induction loop and your voice may not carry as far as you think it does.
Ensure you vocalise everything which is present on the slides - a visually impaired learner (or one sitting at the back of a large auditorium) may not be able to access the material on the screen. Stating this slide explains the concept is not acceptable.
When taking questions from the audience, repeat it before answering, enabling all participants to hear the question.

Conclusions

Microsoft® Word and PowerPoint can be very powerful learning and teaching tools when used effectively. Users should be aware of the inherent and intrinsic accessibility benefits of using heading styles and the notes field. When used appropriately, these can make the difference between an accessible or inaccessible document.

TechDis

TechDis supports the education sector in achieving greater accessibility and inclusion by stimulating innovation and providing expert advice and guidance on disability and technology. TechDis is a JISC-funded advisory service. For more information please see www.techdis.ac.uk

Mental health in higher education - lessons from the first four years

Jill Anderson, Senior Project Officer,mhhe

The Mental Health in Higher Education (mhhe) project was set up with the aim of enhancing learning and teaching about mental health through increasing dialogue and the sharing of approaches across the disciplines in UK higher education. Four years on,what light does a recent evaluation shed upon its impact and the lessons learned?

This evaluation, conducted by an external consultant Judy McKimm and carried out over the early part of this year (2007), provides us with useful insights into the achievements of the project and will help to shape its future progress.

Evaluation activities included:

an online survey, drawing on the mhhe database;
telephone interviews with targeted individuals, representing organisations or subject communities directly involved with mhhe;
documentary analysis - capitalising on the wealth of a range of data produced and collated over recent years.

The project team are consistently praised for their hard work, sensitivity, support and their commitment to improving the teaching and learning in mental health. It is clear from the evaluation report that mhhe has:

reached out to and engaged a wide range of individual stakeholders;
developed excellent working relationships with a variety of organisations - perceived in some quarters to be an honest broker;
provided educators with opportunities to develop interdisciplinary understanding, exchange ideas, and acquire up-todate, reliable and accurate information about mental health policy and practice.

The project has provided leadership in some aspects of learning and teaching about mental health - most notably in the area of user and carer involvement.

The website is clearly highly valued (although a number of suggestions were made about improvements to its structure):

I constantly refer to it... the links and resources sections are particularly rich in material.

The e-bulletin (distributed six times per year) is widely used and seen to be:

an invaluable round up of all news in mental health education.

Whilst the project team were perceived to be responsive and well informed in their approach to queries. By contrast, the mhhe discussion list is little used and would benefit from refocusing.

Respondents valued both national and regional events, rating highly the opportunity for exchange of ideas and information. Whilst links at regional/local level are one of the highest rated areas of impact, problems of consistency and sustainability across the UK were identified. A number of other means of supporting regional networking were suggested and will be followed up.

The report highlighted the significance of the intra-disciplinary work mhhe had undertaken within different professions and their subject centres, opening up or furthering debate about how mental health is taught in several disciplines. The Developers of Users and Carer Involvement network (DUCIE) - a network for user and carer involvement workers directly employed by HEIs - is rated highly:

the DUCIE meetings... have been incredibly useful, inspirational and helpful personally and have had a direct impact on taking my work forward.

Learning from Experience - a good practice guide on user and carer involvement - is seen to be a great resource, and should be even more useful when reissued as part of a planned revision.

Concern was expressed by some about mhhe’s capacity, given the complexity of the mental health field and limited resources of the project, adequately to meet the needs of the mental health learning and teaching community in higher education.

Key recommendations

mhhe should take care to clarify and communicate its purpose - to achieve a common understanding of this and ensure realistic expectations about what it can achieve.
mhhe should increase its visibility and impact through increased publicity, new publications (eg a newsletter) and the fostering and support of innovative small-scale learning and teaching projects.
Thought should be given to increasing the stability and sustainability of the project, given evidence of the need for an initiative of this kind and its uncertain future funding.

All of this provides substantial food for thought and will be helpful in shaping mhhe’s direction in the future. The evaluation has, itself, acted as a prompt for people to re-engage with the project. In the words of one respondent:

I do not feel I have taken as much advantage of mhhe as I potentially could have to date. I would hope to have a more active involvement in the future.

Do join the network if you haven’t already, and please do pass the word around!

For more information contact jill.anderson@lancaster.ac.uk or visit the mhhe website at www.mhhe.heacademy.ac.uk

The European Interprofessional Education Network (EIPEN): News and progress

Dr Marion Helme, IPE Projects and CETL Liaison, Higher Education Academy Health Sciences and Practice Subject Centre, King’s College London

EIPEN continues to develop with progress on consolidating interprofessional education (IPE) developments within the partner countries in the final months of 2007, extending the partnership to more countries, following up the conference and adding to resources on the website.

Future activities

With additional funding, from the EU Lifelong Learning Erasmus Programme, partners from at least three additional countries (Ireland, Slovenia, and Belgium) will join EIPEN in 2008 and host further workshops and seminars on IPE. We are planning a research project to link interprofessional learning with EU policies in health and social care education and further publications and events. To keep fully up to date, please email eipen@kcl.ac.ukto join the EIPEN eBulletin list.

EIPEN news

The EIPEN team at Health Sciences and Practice Subject Centre, with CAIPE and Jayne Slonina, Interprofessional Education Coordinator at King’s College London, hosted two groups of visitors from Japanese universities in September to discuss challenges and achievements in developing interprofessional learning.
A joint EIPEN/Subject Centres workshop on interprofessional education in Wales will be held at the University of Cardiff on 11 April 2008 on the theme of interprofessional learning environments. For further information, registration and call for poster abstracts see www.medev.ac.uk/dinky?dinky_id=812

For more information, contact Marion Helme marion.helme@kcl.ac.uk or Nikos Skizas nikos.skizas@kcl.ac.uk

Common misconceptions of veterinary careers

Gillian Brown, Education Advisor, Higher Education Academy Subject Centre for Medicine,Dentistry and Veterinary Medicine

The Institute for Employment Studies recently published a report Gateways to the Veterinary Profession: Perceptions of Veterinary Careers (report 443) documenting an analysis of perceptions of entry into the veterinary profession.As part of the wider Gateways to the Profession project, the report reveals student perceptions based on careers guidance and materials, as well as those of science teachers and careers advisors.This research was independently commissioned by the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons (RCVS) and took place between November 2006 and May 2007.The following is a summary of the report findings.

Approach

In the 2007 edition of the Ipsos MORI omnibus survey Survey of Secondary School Pupils two questions relevant to this study were included:

Would you consider working with animals? 48% - almost half - responded that that definitely would or maybe would;
Are you considering studying at least one science subject at Alevel? Most of the students surveyed were undecided - 37% said maybe and 23% didn’t give an answer or said they didn’t know.

A sampling of local authorities in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland; provided geographical spread, as well as variation in urban/rural mix, ethnicity and socio-economic status. Focus groups were conducted with students (secondary aged 11-16), teachers, careers advisors and veterinary school admission tutors.

Findings revealed that the majority of students owned one or more small animals as family pets and had, therefore, visited a veterinary practice to have them attended. Across all of the case study groups, only seven had any animal-related work experience within a veterinary practice and agreed that students are more likely to pursue a career in veterinary science if they’d been introduced to it. Some degree of work experience is particularly important in challenging perceptions of a career in veterinary science and should be encouraged wherever possible. Work experience is not always possible in areas with geographic restrictions (i.e. work experience is only available 30 miles away) but most veterinary schools will take this into consideration if they feel that applicants have made a reasonable attempt to arrange work experience.

Students who had decided to pursue a career in the direction of veterinary science said that, depending on their grades, they might consider veterinary nursing as an alternative if they didn’t get the required exam results. Others preferred to aim directly for veterinary nursing as they felt it was a more caring and less medically orientated role. It is interesting to note that students who were also considering medicine were asked why working as a veterinary surgeon might be more appealing than a doctor. They replied that ‘they might have more compassion for sick animals than for humans, as animals are not capable of helping themselves and suffer without complaining.’

Reasons for not pursuing a career in veterinary science are interesting: Some students believe that the profession holds a lower profile than medicine and that it is not portrayed positively on television and in the media. Having to move away from home was thought to be a barrier as many students go to their local universities and not all of these have veterinary schools. Advisors and teachers tend to perpetuate the myth that veterinary science is hard to get in to - although it’s competitive and requires good grades, most schools accept students without three grade As or three Science subjects.

Other reasons revealed: competition for places at veterinary schools, not being guaranteed a job at the end of their studies, anti-social hours, animal attacks, allergies, infections, fear of animals and squeamishness to carry out certain procedures. Some students commented that people will put a lot of trust in vets so the responsibility is huge, especially as it involves life and death situations - these situations were regarded (by the groups) as superior to medicine as doctors only need to know about humans; but veterinarians are required to know about many different species. Others contradicted this perception by suggesting that human lives are more valuable and therefore doctors have a higher social standing. Regardless, the career of a veterinary surgeon is still perceived to be a personally rewarding career.

From interviews with careers advisors, it was felt that the chemistry curriculum was too full for anything related to veterinary science other than a small amount of medical drugs and human biochemistry. Those who taught biology, focussed more on human biology than animals; however a small amount of bearing was given to related topics like animal behaviour and agriculture. It was felt that students with a keen interest in becoming a vet would actively seek out careers material. Many career websites were found to be out of date in respect to salary information and qualifications required, as well as little information for potential students from widening participation backgrounds.

Careers advisors said that they get less than one query per year about students who want to work with animals - often by parents - these advisors received a lot more queries about studying medicine. Veterinary science queries were on a par with Pharmacology and Dentistry. For example:

At one high-achieving Irish school, the careers department is truly inundated with queries about medicine. Of 40-45 studying Chemistry A-level each year, around 20 go on to medical schools yet only one or two to veterinary or dental schools.

It’s interesting to see how the veterinary schools differ slightly in entry requirements, interview processes and gateway programmes. All schools were found to offer extensive amounts of information to prospective students, e.g. grades, prospects and course format. These are all accessible and easy to understand. Schools also make it clear that, not only is work experience with animals is required/desired but also that much of a student’s holiday time will be taken up with work experience. All universities have widening participation policies in place and a number of universities also have information about any access courses they offer to students who are not predicted to get the necessary qualifications at A-level.

A love of animals (and their welfare) from a young age seems to be the motivation for students to study animal-related courses, regardless of the high standing of the profession and potentially high salaries but an in-depth reading of this report is recommended to all educators involved in careers information for secondary schools.

For more information please contact gillian@medev.ac.uk

References

www.rcvs.org.uk/Shared_ASP_Files/UploadedFiles/ 8A0A3FD9-E906-42AC-AC79-077276628EE8_RCVSfinalreport_443.pdf (accessed October 2007)
www.rcvs.org.uk/Templates/Internal.asp?NodeID=95777 (accessed October 2007)
www.rcvs.org.uk
www.ipsos-mori.com/youngpeopleomnibus/index.shtml (accessed October 2007)

Conference report:EIPEN 2007 Learning together to work together

12-14 September 2007 Jagiellonian University,Krakow, Poland

Dr Megan Quentin-Baxter,Director (Acting),Higher Education Academy Subject Centre for Medicine,Dentistry and Veterinary Medicine

The European Interprofessional Education Network in health and social care (EIPEN) partners, led by the Academy Subject Centre for Health Sciences and Practice, hosted a 3 day conference for over 250 international delegates in Krakow, Poland.

The conference was oversubscribed with representatives from Europe, Asia, Australasia, America and Canada. Participants enjoyed a very warm welcome to Krakow by the Rector and the Dean of the Medical Faculty, Jagiellonian University Medical College; Professor Emilia Kolarzyk and Professor Catherine Geissler, on behalf of the EIPEN team and the hosts.

There was unparalleled hospitality throughout the conference, with guided tours and conference dinner (complete with jousting knights) in Wawel Castle, state of the art facilities at the Auditorium Maximum, receptions in the oldest University buildings (Collegium Medicum and Collegium Maius), Organ Concert in the Church of the Virgin Mary followed by a surprise opportunity for a starlight tour of the old town by horse drawn cab.

The keynotes were universally praised. Professor Walter Lorenz (Free University of Bolzano, Italy) brought delegates up to date with European developments and interprofessional education, while Professor John Gilbert (University of British Columbia, Canada) broadened this to an international context. Sari Ponzer, with qualifications in nursing and medicine, (Professor of Orthopaedics, Karolinska Insitutet, Sweden), presented a unique view of interprofessional education and teamwork in clinical practice from the perspective of Chair of the Programme Committee for the Medical Programme. Finally Professor Steen Wackerhausen (Aarhus University, Denmark) used a metaphor of the daily thinking of a milk cow to pose a philosophical challenge reflection as transformation. Professor Hugh Barr and Dr Marion Helme, on behalf of the EIPEN partners, broke the ice on day 1 with an inclusive interactive introduction in which delegates got to find out a little about each other.

There were six parallel strands for refereed papers and workshops and over 60 posters (on themes such as partnership, pedagogy, practice and policy) presented by participants. The conference proceedings and a CD-ROM of presenters’ materials will be available to download from the website www.eipen.org

For more information about the EIPEN project please contact marion.helme@kcl.ac.uk or nikos.skizas@kcl.ac.uk

To find out more about the Subject Centre’s involvement contact megan@medev.ac.uk

Conference report: Veterinary assessment - where’s the evidence?

Susan Rhind, Professor of Veterinary Education,University of Edinburgh

As part of a larger project funded in 2006 by the RCVS trust looking at the potential to develop a common final year assessment for veterinary students, a best evidence medical education (BEME) style review of published evidence around veterinary assessment is being carried out at the Royal (Dick) School of Veterinary Studies in collaboration with the Royal Veterinary College, London.

The preliminary findings were presented at the recent AMEE conference in Trondheim, Norway, in a presentation entitled Final year competency assessment in veterinary medical education. The review has confirmed that there is little evidence within the discipline to support current practices - following an extensive electronic search of 15 databases and hand search of the Journal of Veterinary Medical Education, 228 abstracts were identified which were narrowed down through a filtering process to 54 and 12 related to veterinary assessment and description of the method respectively.

The project emerged from the acknowledgement that arguably both from the perspective of the student and the profession, the final professional examination is the single most important area for veterinary schools to assure is both valid and reliable.

Setting examinations and ensuring standards is increasingly resource intensive and furthermore there are a number of major trends which are impacting on assessment methods in veterinary schools - these include the loss of oral examinations in certain institutions for QA reasons and the introduction of objective structured clinical examination (OSCE) type examinations. As veterinary curricula move towards greater emphasis on clinical and professional skills teaching, validation of allied assessment procedures is clearly highly relevant and the project will now proceed to learn from medical education and other professions where appropriate.

In addition to the veterinary assessment review, updates on a number of other BEME reviews were also presented at AMEE including reviews of self assessment, the effectiveness of journal clubs and portfolios, with discussion highlighting the need to continually clarify and justify our educational practices.

The 4th veterinary presence at AMEE was notable with the running of the pre-conference workshop under the banner of ViEW (Veterinary Education Worldwide) These workshops began in association with the Edinburgh AMEE in 2004 and have been an annual event ever since, supported by the Academy. This year the focus was on the challenges associated with curriculum change and included participants from a number of European countries and North America. Additionally, a formal constitution for the ViEW group was established (Further detail will be available on the ViEW homepage www.veteducation.org).

Veterinary educational perspectives in other areas were also scattered throughout the main conference programme and poster sessions - this included presentations on peer assisted learning, alumni research, interactive theatre, feedback systems, clinical activity tools, curriculum development and changing educational methods from the perspective of alumni, students and teachers.

This gives great optimism for the future - and furthermore can give us confidence that for those embarking on future veterinary education BE(V)ME reviews, the literature may not be so barren: Veterinary education is alive and kicking!

With thanks to co-presenter Dr Sarah Baillie and consultant to the BEME project Prof Marilyn Hammick For more information please contact srhind@ed.ac.uk

Conference report: AMEE 2007

Arnold Somersunderam, St. George’s, University of London

It was a great honour to be awarded a Rewarding Excellence in (Medicine) Learning and Teaching award by the MEDEV Subject Centre, the prize being a trip to the Association for Medical Education in Europe (AMEE) 2007 conference in Trondheim, Norway.Trondheim is the third largest city in Norway and a centre of education, technical and medical research, and therefore an excellent choice of venue for AMEE.

The AMEE conference gets bigger each year with thousands of delegates, many of them new to the AMEE experience. Having attended two previous conferences, I am beginning to feel a bit of a veteran. As a former learning technologist working in medical education, I attended AMEE with an interest on the emerging technologies being implemented in medical education. Having decided on a career change, I am now a medical student, and this would be my first AMEE conference as a student.

The opening ceremony of AMEE 2007 began with a marching band and gun salute in the outdoor courtyard of the Archbishop’s Palace. This was followed by a choir and organ concert in Nidaros Cathedral, one of the most famous buildings in Trondheim and one of Norway’s main tourist attractions. The show was impressive and even the occasional downpour failed to dampen spirits.

Flicking through the conference programme I saw a packed schedule of poster and short communication sessions, workshops and symposia - the difficult part would be deciding which sessions to attend, highlighters at the ready!

After presenting my poster on the first day of the conference, I was drawn to a session of short communications on the use of podcasts and wikis. Silvia Janska, a student from the Royal Veterinary College, reported that first year veterinary science students were recording lectures for podcasting. After initial reluctance from academics to having their lectures recorded, most staff appreciated that this approach is of great value to students who use the podcasts as both a review tool after a lecture and as a revision resource.

The second day’s plenary highlighted some novel approaches to teaching basic sciences. Paul McMenamin from the Faulty of Medicine, Dentistry and Health Sciences, University of Western Australia, is trialling body painting as a teaching tool in the teaching of anatomy to medical students and life drawing artists. Alongside conventional teaching methods, participants get to personally participate in painting muscles onto live models. This is a great way to engage students and make learning anatomy fun and relevant.

On the final day of the conference, a report on a team training simulation for medical students proved very intriguing. John Mahoney of the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, described how students managed a 140 bed hospital, using a lecture hall as a simulated hospital environment that was populated with cardboard avian flu patients. Students also became infected, and were treated by colleagues, further burdening the hospital and degrading capabilities. As well as increasing students understanding of the multi-dimensional nature of disaster and pandemic response, they developed greater understanding of broader concepts that are difficult to teach such as teamwork, communication, leadership, and interdisciplinary respect.

The closing plenary session focused on meeting the needs of students, particularly preparing them for the deluge of information and research data they will meet in practice and also highlighting the importance of students as future medical educators. A personal highlight of the conference was being awarded 2nd prize in the annual poster competition for my poster on Clinical Skills Online (a MEDEV funded mini-project). I picked up some very valuable lessons from the conference and I look forward to next years AMEE in Prague.

For more information please contact asomasun@sgul.ac.uk

The MEDINE Conference 2007: A student’s perspective

Dr Sarah Dolling and Charlotte Mackay, Faculty of Medicine and Dentistry, University of Bristol

Imagine a future where one could train in the Medical School of Europe and subsequently be employed by the European Health Service; surely this is the stuff of fiction? Well, probably, but at the recent MEDINE conference, inroads were made to understand how medical education differs throughout Europe with the aim of shaping a future where the medical community is able to work within a Europe without borders.

As medical students with a particular interest in studying and potentially working abroad, we were delighted at the opportunity to get involved in discussions about the future of Medical Education in Europe (MEDINE) an annual conference held in Antalya, Turkey, on 13th - 15th September 2007. Here differences in medical training within Europe were highlighted, research findings were presented and the possible harmonisation of training and qualification was assessed. In this article we highlight the pertinent points raised at the conference from a student’s perspective.

What is MEDINE?

MEDINE is a thematic network created by the EU to address the educational and quality control issues surrounding medical education. It was created in 2003 and works within the framework of European initiatives, such as the Bologna Process, aiming to enhance cohesion and cooperation across the European Higher education community. For further information, please refer to www.bris.ac.uk/medine/

Core skills and learning outcomes

The Tuning task force was set up to define and gain a Europe-wide consensus on core learning outcomes/ competences for medical graduates. Generic issues ranked as being of greatest importance included the ability for graduates to recognise their own limitations and ask for help. The fact that this was so highly ranked throughout Europe was encouraging for us as the hierarchy implicit in medicine is a common source of intimidation amongst students.

The subject specific core skill that was found to be of greatest importance was the ability to carry out a consultation with a patient. This finding has obvious implications due to language barriers if we are to increase movement of the medical community within Europe; in the EU alone there are 23 different languages spoken. We cannot expect unregulated movement of the work force; a high standard of language ability is clearly necessary. Students, however, would benefit from greater encouragement to participate in schemes such as ERASMUS so that upon qualification they have sufficient language skills to practice abroad. This is of particular relevance to UK students, whose interest in foreign languages is poor compared to our European counterparts.

International recognition of qualifications

The international recognition task force assessed the use of the European Credit Transfer System (ECTS), which currently offers the most viable opportunity for accreditation of prior learning, flexible learning paths and individualised study programmes. The rudiments of ECTS are known to most universities but effective implementation still has far to go. Indeed, a number of different credit transfer systems are currently being utilised within Europe.

The use of a consistent system would provide benefits in terms of guaranteed standards of qualifications across Europe and increased interdisciplinary mobility for those students who, for example, wish to transfer from medicine to dentistry. Additionally, increased use of ECTS would benefit those students who carry out part of their training abroad, ensuring that this educational period is internationally recognised rather than being solely acknowledged by their country of study. One source of concern in the implementation of such a scheme is the inequality in training facilities available in different EU countries. Given the potential to standardise facilities within Europe, mobility of undergraduates will be facilitated by the introduction of a uniform accreditation system. In addition, there was a suggestion of using a similar system at the post-graduate level; an idea that has a potential of providing a powerful continuum between each stage of training across Europe, extending to the level of medical speciality.

Medical research

The research task force conducted a survey of European medical schools to examine the link between research, medicine and the extent to which research related topics are offered and promoted at all levels (undergraduate/ postgraduate training). It found large discrepancies between schools: 25% did not offer research related topics at all with another 25% offering them only as electives. The task force recommends that all students learn research skills and that those who are interested have the opportunity to undertake research as part of their medical curriculum. This would promote use of critical appraisal and a greater understanding of evidence based medicine, skills that are essential to the development of clinical best practice.

Transparency

The task force aimed to improve transparency and public understanding of the medical education process. One of their principle outputs was the creation of MedEdCentral (www.mededcentral.org), an international online collaborative encyclopedia of medical education. MedEdCentral facilitates access to education resources, it provides information of teaching approaches, assessment standards, and curriculum planning. The transparency task force also held workshops comparing implementation of the Bologna process by different countries. They found that whilst implementation was occurring to varying extents in many countries, there was still certain aspects of it, such as diploma duration, that would benefit from additional harmonisation.

Certainly, if we wish to have fewer barriers to the free exchange of students across Europe, then we must work towards increasing the compatibility and comparability of the various education systems that are currently in place.

Quality assurance

This task force worked towards enhancing overall standards of medical education and producing a Europe wide set of quality assurance standards within medicine. They surveyed the various quality assurance and accreditation systems in place throughout Europe and have engaged in cross-national discussions about the different methods employed. A single set of quality assurance standards would enable freer movement of the medical workforce once qualified, and would also ensure that there remains a guaranteed high standard of medical practice throughout Europe.

What does the future hold?

MEDINE aimed to achieve a consensus on medical undergraduate education programmes so that a core curriculum could be shared by all. Not only will this affect us as future clinicians but uptake of the Bologna process has implications for students as well, facilitating the ease with which we would be able to add an international dimension to education, allowing greater convergence and cohesion between curricula.

Free mobility of students and doctors throughout Europe cannot occur without harmonisation of the various systems of medical education that currently exist. The considerable efforts made by MEDINE have worked towards assisting smooth and effective interaction between employers, educators and students throughout Europe. This will raise the standard of Europe’s future healthcare system, and therefore the level of healthcare delivered to patients, which is, after all, the raison d’être of medicine. These are exciting times within medical education and as students we look forward to seeing the achievement of MEDINE come to fruition.

For further information contact Sarah at sd5730@bristol.ac.uk

Student essay competition 2008: What makes a good lecturer?

Write an essay of 1000 words and win FREE registration and budget accommodation for the Association for the Study of Medical Education (ASME) annual scientific meeting for 2008 OR the Association of Medical Education in Europe AMEE OR £250 cash, AND entry to the national Higher Education Academy competition in which you can win a Toshiba Laptop and registration at the prestigious Higher Education Academy conference 2008.

Deadline: 28 March 2008
For more information visit: www.medev.ac.uk/resources/competitions

Workshop programme

Workshops are open to anyone involved in learning and teaching in undergraduate medicine, dentistry and veterinary medicine.They attract CPD points and there is currently no charge for attendance. The programme of workshops is designed and delivered by members of our constituency and thus reflect current concerns in the field.

Details of the workshops are available on the website and we place new ones on the site as soon as dates and venues have been finalised, so keep checking to see if there is something of interest to you. We also send email notification of each workshop to everyone on our mailing list as soon as it is finalised. If you are not on our contact list and would like to receive information about our workshops as well as our regular monthly update on current issues, funding opportunities etc then please go to www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/medev.html or email enquiries@medev.ac.uk To find out more or book your place on any workshop go to: www.medev.ac.uk/resources/meetings/workshops/

Online: ISSN1479-523X The Higher Education Academy
Subject Centre for Medicine, Dentistry and Veterinary Medicine
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Our mission is to work with institutions, discipline groups and individual staff to provide the best possible learning experience for all students - postgraduate as well as undergraduate. We also work with the governments of the UK and their funding bodies to create the best policy environment to enable this to happen. We provide an authoritative and independent voice on policies that influence the student learning experience.

Discipline-based support is provided through the Academy’s Subject Network of 24 Subject Centres. These are a mix of single-site and consortium-based centres located within relevant subject departments and hosted by higher education institutions.

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MEDEV is part of the Subject Network of the Higher Education Academy

The Higher Education Academy Subject Centre for Medicine, Dentistry and Veterinary Medicine School of Medical Sciences Education Development, Faculty of Medical Sciences, Newcastle University, NE2 4HH

enquiries@medev.ac.uk
twitter.com/hea_medev
+44(0) 191 222 5888

01.15 The newsletter of the Higher Education Academy Subject Centre for Medicine, Dentistry and Veterinary Medicine, Winter 2007

Contents

Plagiarism, practicalities and penalties

Journal clubs - a valuable contribution to undergraduate education

Postgraduate certificate in higher education and teaching - reflections and resistance

Nottingham veterinary school: beginning afresh

How well prepared are newly-qualified doctors for Foundation Training?

Game informed Learning

Workshop report: “Grassroots” special interest group support for national initiatives in medical education

Raising awareness of mental health in the veterinary profession

VetLife.org.uk

Information and support for veterinary professionals

Teaching and assessing clinical skills (TACS)

The accessibility essentials of Microsoft®Word and PowerPoint

Some quick accessibility gains when using Microsoft®Word

Some quick accessibility gains when using Microsoft® PowerPoint

Mental health in higher education - lessons from the first four years

The European Interprofessional Education Network (EIPEN): News and progress

Common misconceptions of veterinary careers

Conference report:EIPEN 2007 Learning together to work together

Conference report: Veterinary assessment - where’s the evidence?

Conference report: AMEE 2007

The MEDINE Conference 2007: A student’s perspective

Student essay competition 2008: What makes a good lecturer?

Workshop programme

Resource groups

Recommended links

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