Education Day

Education Days at St George’s School of Health and Medical Sciences are open to everyone involved in the educational experience of our students, including academics, clinical educators, professional services, and students themselves.

Crossing Boundaries; Broadening Horizons

Wednesday 13 November 2024 

Tooting Campus, Hunter Wing Second Floor Boardrooms

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Morning Parallel Sessions

CROSSING BOUNDARIES 1 (H2.6-7)

Interdisciplinary and multi-professional education

Annie Bartlett and Deborah Padfield, Centre for Clinical Education: From Interdisciplinary to Transdisciplinary Education: Extracting the learning

The value of arts and humanities teaching to medical and healthcare students is long established along with their ability to support the development of critical thinking, communication skills and a toleration of uncertainty and ambiguity.  This session will pick out moments of learning in a journey from interdisciplinary to transdisciplinary education within a largely monodisciplinary environment: the challenges and the benefits.  Whilst drawing on early experience of SSCs (Student Selected Components in Medicine), and the Open Spaces programme we will focus specifically on learning from our recent development of transdisciplinary modules, partnering with other institutions to co-deliver mixed cohort teaching with multiprofessional teaching teams.  The aim is that our reflections on institutional cultures, curricula, modes of teaching and students’ responses will be of wider interest.  We argue that in a world where information is easily obtained, learning characterised by curiosity, rigour and enjoyment of multiple discourses is of increasing value and that transdisciplinary learning is a model for the future.

Naomi Lafitte and Andrew Saul, Centre for Allied Health: Innovative module design to promote multi-professional teaching

A core assessment and reasoning module on the MSc Advanced Clinical Practice programme saw a growth in professional diversity with students increasingly enrolled from across the professions. Seen as a great asset to the course, curriculum redesign sought to capitalise on the wealth of experience in the cohorts in a way that shared learning between knowledgeable others and empowered students to make their learning centred to their needs.

BROADENING HORIZONS 1 (H2.8)

Students and Staff in Partnership: A Round Table Discussion

In this session, students and staff will come together to discuss their participation in a range of recent student-staff partnership projects. The session will take the form of a round table discussion, so participants have the opportunity to compare their experiences and ask questions of each other.

Afternoon Parallel Sessions

CROSSING BOUNDARIES 2 (H2.6-7)

Interdisciplinary and multi-professional education

Richard Boulton, Centre for Allied Health: Teaching QI (Quality Improvement) and the challenge of educating on reflective practice

In this session, I will explore the challenges of teaching continuous improvement and reflective practice to Advanced Clinical Practitioner (ACP) paramedics, a profession traditionally guided by strict protocols and hierarchical structures. As ambulance services are undergoing significant transformation, fostering a culture of continuous development becomes crucial for paramedics to adapt effectively. I will discuss our strategies to create for an educational approach that balances reflexivity and critical thinking, with practical learning to equip paramedics with essential skills for improvement. Whilst also ensuring that ACP paramedics can still learn these skills multi-professionally, alongside other ACPs.

Lucy Myers and Stian Reimers, joint Directors of Educational Enhancement and Digital Innovation in the School of Health and Psychological Sciences: Interprofessional learning in CSG School of Health and Psychological Sciences

Interprofessional education, where students from different professions learn ‘with, from, and about each other,’ is a vital component of training in health sciences. In this talk, we outline our approach at Clerkenwell, where nursing, midwifery, radiography, and speech and language therapy students collaborate in small, interprofessional groups on a multi-agency simulated case that unfolds over a full day. We’ll cover the aims and structure of these training days, and key activities – ward-based simulation, roleplay, group discussions, playful learning tasks, and Generative AI-mediated interactions. We’ll also discuss the challenges inherent to interprofessional learning and the ways in which we have attempted to address them.

BROADENING HORIZONS 2 (H2.8)

Students becoming researchers

Pippa Oakeshott and Yee-Ean Ong, Population Health Research Institute Bringing research skills into teaching -Encouraging students to conduct audits in general practice and publish their findings

St George’s has been running a Student Selected Component (SSC-T) module for transition year medical students for over 20 years. As part of that we have supervised 2-6 students each year on behalf of the Population Health Research Institute, mainly doing audits in our inner-city general practice. Students search anonymised medical records and compare clinical practice with NICE guidelines. 

About 50 students (half of those supervised) have published their SSC-T projects, nine in the past year. This may encourage them to consider becoming much needed future general practitioners and doing research.   

Catherine Roberts and Jose Fabregat Saldana , Cell Biology Section, Centre for Biomedical Education , Bringing Research into Teaching; an MSci Biomedical Science Perspective 

The Master’s in Science (MSci) degree is a continuous integrated undergraduate degree, with the final year taught at Level 7. The Biomedical Science MSci shares the first two years of teaching of core subjects with the BSc Biomedical Science. This is followed by bespoke year 3 content to scaffold learning around the acquisition of scientific research skills and knowledge. This leads into the final year of study where students are fully immersed in their year-long real-world research project, supported by one taught module. Here, we will explore the integration of the taught components with the Y4 authentic research project experience.  

Mohani-Preet Dhillon, Lecturer in Interdisciplinary Research and Education, Equal Representation in Academia (ERA): an award-winning initiative

Inequality (inequity), a lack of diversity, and a lack of inclusion is a recognised problem in the UK HEI sector. This is especially noticeable amongst postgraduate research students. The problems span several characteristics (e.g. gender, age, and disability), but there has been a particular focus recently on ethnicity, race and alma mater (where their previous degree was awarded from).

Equal Representation in Academia (ERA) is an award-winning initiative which aims to raise awareness of academic research careers for students from statistically underrepresented backgrounds and thereby facilitate the academic career path for those wanting to follow this route. ERA is open to undergraduate students from underrepresented backgrounds, on any degree programme.

Closing Plenary (H2.6-8)

Dr Chris Blunt & Dr Jillian Terry, Co-Directors of LSE100, London School of Economics

Crossing Disciplinary Boundaries: Tackling Wicked Problems through Interdisciplinary Learning

In LSE’s flagship course, LSE100, students from every undergraduate degree programme come together to explore how their disciplines intersect and how to tackle complex challenges and “Wicked Problems”. In this interactive discussion, Dr Chris Blunt & Dr Jillian Terry, Co-Directors of LSE100, will explore how their course builds interdisciplinary collaboration into the heart of students’ experiences, and encourage reflection on how to create opportunities for students to explore outside of their academic disciplines

Jillian Terry:    Dr Jillian Terry is Associate Professor (Education) and Co-Director of LSE100, the sector-leading flagship interdisciplinary course taken by all undergraduate students at the London School of Economics and Political Science. Trained as an International Relations scholar, Jillian’s research foregrounds feminist ethical perspectives on violence and focuses on the role of new technologies in war and surveillance. She also works on scholarship of teaching and learning, with research interests in interdisciplinary education and inclusive pedagogies.

Chris Blunt:    Dr Chris Blunt is a philosopher of medicine and technology, whose research focuses on questions at the intersection of evidence and ethics, with a particular interest in evidence grading and ranking systems in Evidence-Based Medicine. He is Associate Professor at the London School of Economics and Co-Director of LSE100, the School's flagship interdisciplinary course which is taken by all first-year undergraduates.

Previous Education Days