E-Med News 10, July 2007 - Keele University

School of Medicine

Edition 10, July 2007




Contents


Focus on Stafford
Recent Student Events
Ethics Update
Staff & Academic Appointments Update
Staff Gaining Qualifications
Forthcoming Training Workshops


Focus on Stafford


Stafford provides good training for undergraduate medical students in a pleasant and relaxed atmosphere. The town is semi-rural and the hospital is nicely situated on the edge of the countryside. Many students overlook Stafford , because it is the smallest and most recently involved member of the Keele clinical group. Access to Stoke by the A34 is good, but remember that there are 12 speed cameras between Stafford and the University Hospital in Stoke! If you are staying in Stafford , you can get to Birmingham by train in 30 minutes and if you have a car, there are some interesting places to visit. Accommodation for 30 students is available on the hospital site, but we are close enough to Stoke to make commuting a possibility. The teachers here tend to use the apprenticeship model; students are expected to seek out teaching, which will however be given freely in all departments and there are some formal lectures. The teaching centre is comfortable and there are plans to expand provision of tutorial rooms within the hospital itself. Our aim is to educate and entertain, because we believe that the learning and the practice of medicine should be enjoyable and not a chore.

At present, we take Keele students for core teaching in Medicine and Surgery. Some of the firms are based at Cannock , a further 10 miles south along the A34 and there is a shuttle bus if you are based there. We can offer SSCs in Obstetrics/Gynaecology, Paediatrics and Psychiatry, in addition to the core subjects. We also teach students from St George's University in the Caribbean . They are from many different places, including Africa , the US and several of the Caribbean islands. They are interesting people and it is well worthwhile getting to know them while you are in Stafford .

We know that we are not perfect and will respond to suggestions. We want medical students to remember Stafford for the right reasons and to come back to us for their foundation years. We have a good programme and we have already welcomed back some of the students who came to us in their fifth year. Do consider Stafford . It is no better, or worse than the other clinical centre – it is different. We have our own character and characters and I am sure that you would enjoy working with us.

Recent Student Events


Enjoyed The Medical Student Career Fair? - But what's next?

The Career Fair, on Saturday the 16 th of June was a great success. About 80 students and 22 speakers attended the fair. The event was also support by 11 local and national organisations who provided stalls, funding, information, and resources.

We also had 4 great formal sessions: “Diverse Medical Careers” that presented opportunities to use medicine in unusual areas; “Medical Career Structure and Job Application Advice”; a game show style session, “Medicine v Surgery v GP”; and a “Have You Considered” session that featured specialities that are not major features of the core student curriculum.

We'd like to thank everyone involved for making the day such a great success. Apart from some timing and organisational issues, the response to the day was excellent and we will use the feedback we have received and the lessons we have learned this time to make the next career fair even bigger and better! We hope to organise the next fair for late in the next academic term.

So what else have we been up to? In our first three and a half months we have acted as a forum for discussing career concerns, liaised with our deanery, created a website, and produced a leaflet series. Lizzie Cottrell has also presented our committee at a national conference. Our plans for the future are to extend our leaflet series, provide drop in sessions with CV clinics and general career advice, and possibly an evening lecture series! And those are just some of our ideas!

Interested? Why not get involved? We are a committee for students, by students and we want to make sure that all Keele medical students get the career support they need in every year at medical school. So we want to hear from you. You can e-mail us through our website (medscc@hotmail.co.uk), come along to our meetings, or just keep up-to-date by regularly checking out our website (www.keelemedicalcareers.co.uk).

Anna Sutherland, Keele Medical Student Career Committee Member

Lizzie Cottrell, Keele Medical Student Career Committee initiator and facilitator


Charity Football Match

On the 25th of April, Keele Medical Society staged their 3rd annual charity football tournament in aid of Sarcoma UK , a charity aiding in the continuous research and development of a rare soft tissue cancer. The event, as always, was the highlight of the annual calendar, proving a resounding success with over £250 raised. Congratulations are in order for PBL 9 (Year 1), led by Shabbir Tejani, who remained undefeated throughout the tournament, eventually claiming the coveted prize. A special thank you as always is in order for the staff team lead by the eventually absent Mike Mahon, who again put on a brave showing in the annual staff v students match (the scoreline shall remain anonymous for obvious reasons). Once again, a big thank you to everyone involved.

Adnan Darr KMS Vice President



Dan to Run Big Apple

Third year student, Dan Borlase, is to run the ING New York City Marathon this November, raising money for Great Ormond Street Hospital Dan Borlase - StudentChildren's Charity who he and his family have been keen supporters of for many years.

The 26.2 mile trek will start early morning 4 th November in Staten Island ,

crossing over the Narrows into Brooklyn , running through Queens and Bronx before finishing up in Central Park , on Manhattan Island .

His training is going well so far, although he admits the intense training doesn't start until the end of July. He would be much appreciated for any support that people could give him, either by sponsoring him or for anyone who is into running or jogging, to go out with him in their spare time.

If you would like to sponsor Dan in his challenge you can do so by visiting www.justgiving.com/borlase and pledging a donation; Or in person, Dan has many sponsor forms on him.

He would like to that everyone who has supported him so far.


Ethics Update


Keele students at Yale

Group of Keele University students at Yale University in the USASukhvans Sandhu and Nicola Murphy are working on their 4 th year projects and at the time of writing are making the most of their time at Yale University (USA) as summer interns on a programme run by the Interdisciplinary Center for Bioethics . As part of their experience they spent two days in New York at the Hastings Center for Bioethics and feature in the group photo (Sukhvans, complete with turban in the centre, and Nicola on the extreme right). On a visit to Yale in June I gave a case presentation to the class of interns and met with our students' mentors at the School of Medicine. Plans are under way for 2008 and it is hoped that this will be an annual event and that it will develop into a two-way student exchange.

Dr Roger Worthington


Staff & Academic Appointments Update

(Contact details for all staff members can be found at: http://www.keele.ac.uk/depts/ms/staff_info/)

Administration Posts


Charlotte Hulme – Skills/Appraisals Administrator

Charlotte joined the administrative team at the Hospital Campus on Friday 1 st June 2007 after working in the Postgraduate Office at Keele University for 2 years. She will provide administrative support in their relevant teams for communication skills, clinical skills and student appraisals across all five years of the course. One of Charlottes main tasks is to ensure that tutors, simulated patients and mentors are recruited/allocated for the skills and appraisals sessions, and ensuring relevant payments are made as appropriate.

Teresa King - Assessments Co-ordinator – Keele Campus

We welcomed Teresa to the Assessments team in May 2007. She will be providing administrative support for all the various forms of assessment, initially for Years 1 and 2 of the course, with this increasing to cover the later years in the future. Prior to joining Keele, Teresa worked at Stoke on Trent College 6 th Form Centre as an Administrative Officer.

Paula Franks

Paula Franks has recently been appointed as Facilities Administrator for the Keele campus Medical School building. She was previously working in the Assessments Office. Paula will be overseeing the running of our reception desk, co-ordinating room bookings and other matters relating to the building.

Lizzie Mitchell

Lizzie took up her new post of Student Support Tutor on 25 th June, working as part of our developing Student Support Team. After 3 years on our reception desk, Lizzie has a good idea of the type of problems medical students face.

Eva Palenicek

Eva joined our Year administrative team in March replacing Clare Sillitto as Year 1 Administrator. She previously worked in Earth Sciences as the PA to Prof Williams and is settling in well.

Carol Dasey

Carol is covering a period of maternity leave in our Admissions Office and is settling in well. She worked at Manchester University and has done some temping work for the Medical School previously.

Steven Clipstone

Steve has returned to Keele as our Laboratory technician having previously been a Post Graduate student in Chemistry. He is enjoying learning about the different medical lab equipment and teaching.

Beth Barlow

Beth joined our Admin team in July as Administrator for Student Support and Progress working with our Director of Student Support and administering various committees relating to student progression. She has previously worked at Staffordshire University and the Zone Project.

New Academic Appointments


Dr Gordon Dent

We were pleased to appoint Dr Gordon Dent to the post of Director of Admissions recently, following Mr Kirby's appointment to the post of Academic Undergraduate Director of Surgery at UHNS (see below). Gordon has been assisting Mr Kirby with Admissions for several years, and will combine his Director role with his busy workload co-developing the new Year 2 curriculum and continuing to deliver pharmacology teaching.

Dr Clive Gibson

Dr Clive Gibson takes up his post of Director of Academic Staff Development at the beginning o August. He will be co-ordinating a range of faculty development programmes and directing the Certificate in Medical Education. Clives background is in dentistry and he also works for the West Midlands PGH Deanery in the staff development arena.

Dr Caitlyn Dowson

Since Dr Andrew Hassell has taken up his post of Director of Undergraduate Programmes, Dr Dowson has been temporarily co-ordinating the locomotor elements of our Year 4 Mind & Movement module. In June, she was formally appointed to the role of Locomotor Lead for this module.

Dr Nick Watson

The post of Heart, Lung & Blood (HLB) Leader became vacant with Dr Pantins move to another post (see below). Dr Nick Watson from Radiology was appointed to the post in June and we welcome him to our Hospital Campus team.

Dr Chantelle Todd & Dr Simon Gay

Chantelle & Simon have recently been appointed to the posts of Lecturers in Academic General Practice, both posts are part time position and they will be joining us early August. They will be combining their academic posts with their general practice duties and these appointments further strengthen our Primary Care staff team.

Dr Suzanne Whiteman

Suzanne joined the School as Teaching Fellow in Biomedical Science in June having previously worked in the Institute of science and Technology in Medicine as Project Co-ordinator for a clinical based study with Optical Coherence Tomography. Suzanne was a Post Graduate student at Keele and also gained experience as a PBL tutor for Year 1 of the medical course.

Dr Richard Emes

Dr Emes moved to Keele in June to take up the post of Lecturer in Bioscience. Richard has worked at the University College of London as MRC Special Training Fellow in Bioinformatics for 3 years and also has experience as postdoctoral research assistant at Oxford and the Wellcome Trust.

Academic Undergraduate Directors of Clinical Disciplines

The following staff have recently been appointed to posts which will co-ordinate the clinical teaching in their respective disciplines at the University Hospital of North Staffs or Combined Healthcare Trusts:

Academic UG Director of Medicine - Dr. Charles Pantin

Academic UG Director of Support Services - Dr. Mark Cowling

Academic UG Director of Women & Children's Services - Dr. Martin Samuels

Academic UG Director of Mental Health - Dr. Helen Thorley

Academic UG Director of Surgery - Mr. Robert Kirby

Staff Gaining Qualifications

Congratulations to the following Medical School staff who have recently achieved qualifications as follows:-

Mr Adrian Molyneux – MSc in Computer Science

Mr Stephen Harper – HNC in Computing

Miss Sarah Philpott – NQV2 in Business Administration

Mrs Janet McNicholas – NVQ2 in Business Administration

Miss Rachel Ansell – NVQ2 in Business Administration

Mrs Marie Bowen – NVQ4 in Business Administration

Mrs Sue Cartwright - ECDL

Miss Kerry Booth – First Aid


Forthcoming Training Workshops


Core Skills in Laparoscopic Surgery (5 th – 7 th December 2007)

This will be an intensive course with plenty of opportunity to practice skills in the Laboratory, using bench-top models specifically designed for the course.


Obstetrics & Gynaecology

Third & Fourth Degree Perineal Repair Workshop ( 20 th November 2007 )

A one-day hands-on skills course for the repair of episiotomies and third degree perineal tears. This course is aimed at Consultants, trainee obstetricians & gynaecologists in colorectal surgery.

Second Degree Episiotomy Repair Workshop ( 19 th November 2007 )

A one-day hands-on skills course for the repair of episiotomies and second degree perineal tears. This course is aimed at midwives, trainee obstetricians & gynaecologists.


For further information on any of the above courses, please contact Karen Wilson on either 01782 553963 or pma02@keele.ac.uk