Faculty of Health

School of Medicine

E-MedNews 23, June 2011

News from Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital

GMC Accreditation Update from Head of School

Val Wass The GMC QABME team visited undergraduate medicine in March. This was an extremely important high stakes visit to review our proposals for student assistantships in Module 5, check on progress in general and meet with Trust leads, Module 4 students and our Module 4 and 5 tutors. The verbal feedback we received at the end of the visit was very positive.

They reported being very impressed by our Module 4 student representatives whom they said we should be proud of. They were enthusiastic, motivated and were given great credit for their contribution. There were some minor issues but on the whole their feedback was very positive! Tutors gave fully supportive feedback on the curriculum and the team all presented extremely impressively. We were also truly grateful to the impressive turn out of Chief Executives and Medical Directors from our NHS Trusts. They expressed the strongest of commitments to the Medical School and reported we were having a favourable effect on their delivery of care and the Health Economy.

The Chair, Professor Julius Weinberg, reported that we were on track for accreditation of the new curriculum next year. They were impressed by the progress to date, the warm hospitable atmosphere of the School, the commitment of the staff and also the value that the Chief Executives and Medical Directors of the NHS Trusts placed on having medical students in their Health Economy. There will be a video conference in June, and then a full report to the GMC which should be ratified finally in December for accreditation of the curriculum. We expect a further visit in Module 5 to check the student assistantships are working well.

Thank you for the support you give us at these important times. It is good to see the school moving forward, gaining in respect nationally and to know that we are producing good doctors who are valued by our local Trusts.

Visits such as these only work so well as they are preceded by months of careful preparation. Sincere thanks to Dr Peter Coventry, Mrs Vanessa Hooper, Miss Nikki Crouch and of course all involved in supporting them. This was a great achievement. Thank you everyone.

Professor Val Wass
Head of School

Visitors to Keele

Medical School welcomes Palestinian Visitors

Two guests from Palestinian Medical Schools met with academic staff, clinicians and medical students during a three day stay at Keele (13th -16th March). Dr Mahmoud A.A. Khrishi, Director of Psychiatry, Al-Najah University and Dr Samah Jabr, Director of Psychiatry, Birzeit University and Ramallah Community Mental Health Centre were visiting a number of medical schools to find out how the behavioural and social sciences are taught in medical curricula in the UK. Their visit was initiated through the World Health Organisation, funded through the International Medical Education Trust and organised by BeSST (Behavioural and Social Science Teachers in Medicine). It was arranged at Keele by Judy Rock, Co-ordinator of Behavioural and Social Sciences in the Medical School.

The visitors explained that the aim of their tour was to enable them to promote and support behavioural and social sciences within Palestinian medical schools. They wish to encourage more trainee doctors into psychiatry as there are only fifteen psychiatrists in the whole of Palestine. They believe it is an unpopular career choice because of the stigma attached to mental illness. They hope to address this by encouraging a more patient-centred focus through educating trainee doctors and medical students in the behavioural and social sciences.

During their stay, the visitors learnt about how the behavioural and social sciences are integrated and delivered in the medical curriculum at Keele. They observed a lecture on Poverty and Health delivered by Dr Lauren Brooks and examples of small group teaching, including an inter-professional activity. They met with members of the Senior Management team to learn about curriculum development at Keele and a group of Module 1 students who offered their views of behavioural and social sciences. The visitors also toured a number of community placements in the Stoke area and met with representatives from Medsin, a network of students with an interest in global health, who wished to learn about healthcare in Palestine with a view to developing possible exchange programmes and electives.

Palestinian Visitors
The visitors are pictured with a group of students from Medsin

The visitors said that they have taken a great deal from their stay with us and look forward to the opportunity to reflect on this. Their experiences have helped them to clarify their ideas about how they might incorporate behavioural and social sciences into their curricula. They would like to stay in contact with us and would be pleased if staff and/ or students from Keele would like to visit Palestine. Thanks to all who participated in welcoming the visitors and contributing to the international reputation of the Medical School,

Judy Rock – Co-ordinator of Behavioural and Social Sciences

Royal Society of Medicine Careers Day 2011

On Wednesday the 16th March 2011 the School of Medicine hosted its 9th annual “So you want to be a doctor conference”. The event was attended by 250 school pupils, including 49 students who are involved in two local widening participation projects. The remaining delegates came from schools in Bolton, Cheshire, Leicester, Liverpool, Manchester, Nottingham, North Wales, Shropshire, Staffordshire and Warwickshire.

RSM1 The morning programme included a range of talks from choosing a Medical School to experiences of being a newly qualified doctor in the foundation year programme. Teachers accompanying the delegates were also given an opportunity to find out more about the Science Learning Centre at Keele or to attend a session on completing UCAS references.

RSM2 Following the lunch break students and teachers rotated through a series of workshops, including practical sessions looking at lung function and blood pressure. “The session in the IT suite was particularly insightful – the day gave an excellent rounded view of the positive and negative sides of a medical career”.

The event was a great success thanks to all the Medical School staff and students who helped.

Mrs Julia Molyneux - Admissions Manager

Inaugural Medical Education Conference

The first Keele University School of Medicine Education Conference was held on the 13th April 2011. 130 doctors and academic teaching staff from across the whole School including both Primary and Secondary Care, and some visitors from other universities Inaugural1 were welcomed by Professor Val Wass and enjoyed a day of lectures and interactive workshops. The morning key note speakers Adrian Freeman from Peninsular Medical School and Chris Harrison from Keele Medical School presented on Feedback, always a ‘hot potato’ and reference was of course made to the National Student Survey. Thought provoking presentations challenged our conventional teaching and made us think about complex systems of self-regulatory theory, whereby students can move between two foci: ‘promotion’ and ‘prevention’ when either positive or negative feedback may result in developing a ‘scaffold’ approach to moving students along a line of improvement. The audience then reflected upon further conundrums when there is a mismatch between students and staff as a consequence of teachers not recognising which focus the student was engaging.

The delegates then joined workshops of their choice which included subjects such as:

• Assessment in the Behavioural / Social Sciences
• The Early Learning Experience & Workplace -based Assessments
• GeCoS Generic Consultation Skills
• Giving Feedback: Progression Decisions
• Case Based Learning
• Overview of Assessment in the Keele Curriculum Situational Judgment Tests
• The Assessment of Professionalism
• OSCAR Objective Structured Case Analysis and Reflection
• Educational Prescriptions

Inaugural2 After lunch Professor Fiona Patterson from Cambridge gave us a fascinating insight into Situational Judgment Tests which are the latest (psychological) tests being used in large scale recruitment into diverse areas such as FY1, General Practice and the FBI! Clearly these will be of great importance to all young doctors who are undoubtedly going to encounter these tests in their future careers. For those of you who did not get a chance to hear Professor Patterson, here is an example of a SJT:

A good friend, whose father has been admitted to the hospital you are working in, asks you to find details of his illness as the hospital will not tell her anything over the telephone. She is on holiday aboard and needs to know whether to return home early.

Rank in order the following actions in response to this situation (1 = most appropriate; 5 = least appropriate)

A. Decline politely, explaining that this would be a breach of hospital rules
B. Ask your friend to confirm in writing or email with the hospital that you have her permission to ask for information
C. Ask your consultant for advice on which is the best option
D. Tell your friend that you will ask her father whether he will discuss his case with you in these circumstances
E. Tell your friend that you will discuss her situation with her father’s consultant

The busy programme finished with a repeat of the workshops giving delegates a chance to go to a second area of personal interest. As an advanced date for your diaries, the second Medical Education Conference will be held on the 25th April 2012

Dr Clive Gibson - Director of Academic Staff Development

Admissions News

It's never too late: reaching out to mature learners

The School of Medicine is currently engaged in an initiative sponsored by the Lifelong Learning Network (LLN) and led by Gordon Dent to raise the School’s profile with mature learners in the Staffordshire and Shropshire regions.

The aim of the project is to increase the number of applications to medical schools from local mature learners. We will provide information, advice and guidance to raise awareness of the nature and requirements of the study and practice of medicine. It is intended that the provision of support, guidance and orientation will help mature learners with limited access to careers services to make informed decisions and competitive applications.

Mike Lancaster will lead the production of a series of short movies and the development of a website to provide important information to potential students. We shall be following a number of mature students from various backgrounds to hear how these individuals have coped with adjusting to medical student life, in terms both of study skills/habits and of social and personal relationships.

We will record attendance, application and entry data to monitor conversion of attendance into application and entry and develop taster day schedules and resource materials.

Dr Gordon Dent & Mr Mike Lancaster
Director of Admissions Web Page and Publications Co-ordinator

Undergraduate Update

Module 5: Preparation for Professional Practice

On the 22nd August, Module 5, the final year of the new Keele Curriculum, will begin. This is the culmination of an enormous amount of work by the Module leads Dr Sheena Gibson, Mr Mike Mahon and Mr Paul Wilson supported by the Curriculum Project Officer Vanessa Hooper. This team has developed a vibrant Module 5 staff team across the two counties, both in primary and secondary care, who have contributed to the development of an innovative and exciting course. The design of the Module reflects the greater emphasis being placed nationally on ensuring that graduates are workplace-ready. Students will work as ”assistants” in placements in general practice(15 weeks, working with fellow students in a small cluster of practices), medicine and surgery(5 weeks each) as well as attend a 5 week Critical Care placement. The hospital placements will be in UHNS, Mid Staffs and SaTH while the GP placements will be spread across Staffordshire, Shropshire and neighbouring areas.

The GMC has produced guidance that helps to define the nature of these assistantships; this emphasises that the students should learn how to perform many of the activities of a Foundation Year 1 doctor in safely supervised settings. Students will conduct many patient consultations, including at least 400 in general practice, and receive feedback from their supervisors on these consultations. Our expectation is that when our students finish a placement with a clinical team, that team will miss them.

The Keele course is an integrated curriculum with varying proportions of clinical and biomedical, behavioural and social scientific learning in each year. Scientific learning during the assistantships will be supported by STOKER (Searchable Taxonomy of Keele Educational Resources) a searchable database of the teaching content from the previous four years. Mike Mahon and Adrian Molyneux, Lecturer in Learning Technology, have developed this very useful resource.

At the end of the Assistantships, students will sit an Objective Structured Clinical Examination designed to ensure that they have achieved graduate standards and are ready for their first jobs as doctors. During the year, there will also be a variety of types of formative assessment that will provide the students with detailed feedback. After the OSCE, they will then have an 8-week elective, followed by two weeks shadowing, and then a well-earned holiday before starting their Foundation posts as the first graduates of the Keele course!

Dr Peter Coventry - Director of Curriculum

Clinical Skills laboratory update

The newly refurbished labs at the Clinical Education Centre have now been open for almost a year. They have been a tremendous success and have shown how team work and collaboration between the School of Nursing and Midwifery and both the undergraduate and postgraduate programmes in the School of Medicine can produce a ‘grand’ yet very functional and flexible design for skills across the faculty.

There is a constant stream of students and staff using the area. The rooms have been used in the open plan format for teaching and in the small room format for communication skills sessions and for summative assessment during the OSCEs.

Two of the rooms have audio-visual recording facilities; these have been used for staff to record sessions for peer review and we filmed during the 5th year formative OSCE for examiner training.

Overall the skills team are delighted with the new space and Anita Smith should be congratulated for her significant part in the refurbishment of this area.

The area will provide a great space for all the school’s skills training needs. We are looking forward to the new module 5 acute care curriculum where we will be making full use of all the new facilities when we deliver a region wide course in medium fidelity simulation with SimMan and this space ensures that Keele has facilities that match any in the West Midlands.

Dr Lucy Ambrose – Director of Skills

Ludlow Conference Centre

Ludlow

In 2008, the School of Medicine commissioned Dr John Wynn-Jones and the Institute of Rural Health to scope the potential to establish a rural campus in South Shropshire. John’s team identified fifteen practices which were interested in taking undergraduates. The reactions of students and health care professionals to the idea of more rural teaching were also explored and John’s team crucially identified the importance of local shared accommodation to avoid what would be inevitably either be substantial travel times and costs or social isolation for students. The report recommended that we think in terms of establishing a ‘rural campus’ in South Shropshire.

With the help of Robin Cross, the University’s Fundraising Officer, we identified Ludlow Conference Centre (LCC) as a potential partner. With the support of the West Midlands Strategic Health Authority (SHA) we have negotiated an agreement (initially for 7 years) with the Conference Centre to provide accommodation for 11 medical students on placement in South Shropshire, North Herefordshire and Powys. In return, the provision of 11 study bedrooms with ensuite shower rooms and a communal kitchen and sitting room for medical students is the centrepiece of LCCs extension and refurbishment plans. These have now passed all the regulatory hurdles and work is due to start in June. The target completion date for the students’ accommodation is 11 November 2011 in time to take its first students on 5th December.

In parallel with developing the accommodation hub, Maggie Bartlett has been recruiting practices. Currently 11 practices have made commitments to taking 3rd and 5th year students. The first practice teacher development session was held on the 11 May with a further session planned in June.

We are on course to have a total of 44 students living in Ludlow and learning each year in what we believe is the first UK rural medical school campus. By 2014, 44% of our graduates will have spent four or 15 weeks working in the rural campus.

We believe the Rural Campus can make a unique contribution to medical education by providing our students with the chance to live and learn in a rural community and to experience the challenges and rewards of rural healthcare.

Dr Maggie Bartlett - Clinical Lecturer in Medical Education and Patch Lead for Shropshire

External conferences

SAPC Northern Conference 2010

SAPC

On 25th and 26th November 2010, the annual Northern Regional Conference of the Society for Academic Primary Care (SAPC) took place at the Castle Green Hotel, Kendal, Cumbria, hosted by Manchester Medical School. Keele was well represented, both by staff and students.
2 Keele Medical students presented; Amy Hawarden presented a paper “Once a Mother… A systematic review”, and Adam Hancock gave us “Is there an association between Polymyalgia Rheumatica (PMR) and vascular disease?”

We would encourage more students to submit work for SAPC North, it is a very friendly conference!

Keele were strongly represented in the papers accepted for presentation, reflecting the dynamism and varied interests within the School of Medicine and the Primary Care Sciences Research Institute. The following School staff presented:

Maggie Bartlett “Patients’ views on the presence of medical students in general practice consultations”

Dr Robert G Jones & Adrian Molyneux “Electronic feedback of the outcomes of serial workplace based assessment of consultation skills: development, application and future.”

Dr Robert G Jones “Students’: evaluation of serial educational workplace based assessments of their consultation skills in general practice with an email summary”

Professor Robert K McKinley “UK general practice electives for overseas students: a missed opportunity”

Dr Simon P Gay “Theory to practice – the underpinning of a new Higher Consultation Skills programme”

Dr Maggie Bartlett/Professor Robert K McKinley “A Scale for Measuring the Quality of Clinical Skills Assessments in Primary Care: Quality Assurance”

From the Primary Care Health Sciences Research Institute, the following were presented:

Dr Victoria Welsh “A hopeless idea? GPs views on extending the sickness certification role beyond the medical profession to nurses and allied health professionals in primary care.”

Toby Heliwell “Polymyalgia: Diagnosis, prescribing and monitoring in primary care.”

Mujaheed Shraim “GP consultation patterns for non-specific musculoskeletal pain and medically unexplained symptoms in parents and children.”

Rob and I were initially unaware that we had been chosen for the plenary presentation as our paper had scored highest for the abstract. We were even more surprised, yet very honoured, at the dinner on the evening of the 25th to be awarded the prize for the best presentation.

The keynote presentations by Professor Richard Wilkinson on the subject of social inequality, and Professor Chris Drinkwater on the subject of mental and emotional wellbeing were thought provoking and were a fitting end to an excellent conference.

The next Northern Conference is scheduled for 24th and 25th November 2011, again in Kendal.

Mr Adrian Molyneux - Lecturer in Learning Technology

Keele Staff Attend St Georges Advanced Assessment Course

St Georges The Medical School has a strategy of achieving excellence in student assessment partly through developing a large pool of staff with expertise in this field. Dr Mark Cowling, Director of Assessments, leads an active in-house programme of examiner development, and for several years the School has encouraged members of staff to attend the annual St George’s Advanced Assessment Course in London. In 2010, Dr Steve Capey, Dr Peter Coventry, Miss Kirsty Hartley (who expertly led the organisation of the trip), Professor Andy Hassell, Dr Stuart McBain and Dr Susanne Whiteman attended the two day course. The course is delivered by internationally –renowned leaders in assessment theory and practice, and consists of lectures and interactive workshops. The Keele team attended workshops exploring standard setting, psychometrics, and assessment of professionalism, workplace-based assessment, and OSCE examiner training. All who attended found it very useful and thought provoking, and the knowledge gained has helped to inform ongoing discussions about how to enhance our assessments strategy.

The intention is to send more staff to the 2011 St. Georges Course.

Dr Peter Coventry, Dr Stuart McBain , Dr Suzanne Whiteman, Dr Steve Capey, Professor Andy Hassell and Miss Kirsty Hartley.

AUA Jubilee Conference and Exhibition
'Looking back, looking forward and looking beyond'

AUA Girls Cropped
Left to right:- Vanessa Hooper - Curriculum Project Officer, Sarah Philpott - Placements Co-ordinator, Annette Machin
– Undergraduate Manager, Kirsty Hartley - Education Office Manager, Debbie Paddison - Postgraduate Manager, Wendy
Jenkinson - Shrewsbury and Telford Undergraduate Manager, Carol Roberts – Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital Senior
Administrator and Margaret Hollins - School Business Manager.

As part of the Schools continuing development towards achieving excellence, eight intrepid explorers made it over the county border in April to attend the Association of University Administrators (AUA) Jubilee Conference in Nottingham. The School has attended in smaller numbers in previous years but broadened the attendance this year as part of both internal cross site development and improvement and an opportunity to share good practice, innovations and training with an international network of universities professional service staff.

The conference began with an excellent keynote address by Dame Tanni Grey-Thompson who was both inspirational and interesting, two words not always associated with keynote speakers!

As acknowledged in a recently published article ‘A Starring Role Beckons’ in the Times Higher Education 14.4.11, we are moving to new accountability and ‘student as consumer’ climate whereby the ‘back room boys’ of the university will need to be more visible and services professional.

With this in mind the Keele Medical School’s representatives attended a range of workshops, hopefully all of relevance, including:
• Quality and standards one year on. An update on current developments in the field of quality assurance
• The National Student Survey (NSS): A tool for enhancing the student learning experience. The University of Glasgow's approach
• How to avoid becoming a cooked frog - Responding to change: providing leadership & directing resources in leaner times
• Exploring the Labyrinth. Using the labyrinth as a tool to calm the mind.

The good practice explored in the sessions will now be discussed and, where appropriate, utilised by the broader team to enhance our current provision.

Attendance at conferences and CPD is an important part of the upskilling of our workforce as well as professionalising and gaining recognition for the services we provide..

So from sunny Nottingham :

'Looking back, looking forward and looking beyond'
Adieu – until next year

Mrs Vanessa Hooper – Curriculum Project Officer

UK Council of Clinical Communication

A large contingent of Keele delegates descended on Manchester University on 24th March 2011 for the “Communication in Undergraduate Medical Education Conference”.

UK Council Keele’s vibrant “corporate” splash drew comment in the poster section. Of particular note, Bruce Summers (et al) won Conference best poster for “After SOCRATES – PLATO” and ended the day on a high. Many delegates were also fascinated by the other posters including Janet Lefroy et al “Development & Validation of an Instrument to Assess Consultation skills”; Rob Jones et al “Developing E-Feedback for Serial Workplace Based Assessment of Consultation Skills”; Roger Bloor and Steve Freeman’s “Improving communication; Pendleton and video feedback in OSCE practice” and my own “using Student Role Play to Explore Doctors’ Problem Drinking & Professionalism”.

Keele also had a strong voice with excellent Conference presentations by Alison Irvine and Janet Lefroy.

This was Alison’s first oral presentation at a national conference. Her topic was “The Classroom-Clinical Practice divide in teaching communication skills.” Having rehearsed it at Medical Education Research Group (MERG) - a process that she would “strongly recommend to all fledgling presenters”!, it was sharp, focused well-paced and delivered in time. Her main message was that there IS a divide so we should “mind the gap”. It may be helpful to “not mind” that there is a gap, but embrace it and teach to differences – being “mindful” of the gap – particularly in pre- and post- placement briefings and debriefings’.

Janet Lefroy finished Keele’s contribution with a Tour de Force presentation of data on student acceptability and GP involvement in “Turning a Workplace-Based Assessment into an Educational Prescription” generating a lot of interest in Keele’s ongoing story of the Generic Consultation Skills assessment instrument GeCoS.
We also learnt much from our colleagues including entertaining keynote lectures. For me, Patterson et al’s talk “Communication about medicines” highlighted the importance of teaching communication skills to explore medicine adherence and the possibility of doing this interprofessionally.

Dr Kevin Owens - Clinical Teaching Fellow

Birmingham Conference 2011
Assessing trainees in the workplace: issues and opportunities

This conference was hosted by the West Midlands Workforce Deanery and Centre for Research in Medical and Dental Education who are to be congratulated on the organisation of the event in an excellent venue. The conference opened with a keynote presentation entitled “Changing assessment culture: The challenges of workplace based assessment” by Professor Val Wass which was thought provoking to all and very well received.

The presentation which attracted most attention through the day and was palpably enjoyable by all was given by Dr Russell Crawford on the innovative “Keele Basic Bites” which he developed with Dr Andrew Morris (no one seemed to notice that Russell plays golf with no ball). At lunch time I overheard several conversations on this topic which had clearly inspired many attendees.
Professor McKinley presented a paper on the Keele general practice curriculum entitled “A novel integrated spiral general practice curriculum which focuses on the development of consultation skills through serial workplace based assessment”. This paper was complemented by a presentation by myself on use of electronic feedback of the outcomes of these assessments.

Dr R. Worthington presented with Mr Obhrai on research they had undertaken on “Challenges to personal and professional values held by foundation doctors: Have these changed since graduation, and if so why?”

I attended the workshops run by Mr Paul Weeden and Dr Mike Deighan on work based learning and assessment and thoroughly enjoyed the views of a range of clinicians on such assessments in a workshop which was well lead.

I would recommend this conference to any member of staff who is involved in assessment of our students in the workplace.

Dr Rob Jones - Clinical Lecturer in Medical Education

News from Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital (SaTH)

SaTH Ball The 16th December saw the Shropshire Campus’ annual winter ball. Highlights of the night included an indoor snowball fight, live music from Hickman and Quinn and an a cappella performance of Hallelujah by our very own Teleri Williams which got a standing ovation and brought a tear to many an eye.

Pictured left are: Charlotte Mears, Olivia Ward, Lucy Shaw, Tamzin Burrows, Anna Price, Isabel Wardach and Amy Hawarden.

January saw Shrewsbury Seniors challenging Keele Med School years 1-5 to a hockey match at Roman Road Sports Centre with a meal at the Beacon afterwards. Unfortunately Keele lost this match by an undisclosed amount.

The 5th years held a leaving dinner at Condover Golf Club on the 23rd March following which Drs Perks and Maxton put on a very impressive floor show including a plethora of Dr Perks’ favourite songs as sung by himself, a never to be repeated live scene from the BBC’s new show “Maxton’s Junior Doctors” (featuring Alexander the Meercat) and a special one off performance by ‘Bob Maxton-Marley’. Thom Dunn was compere for the evening and was helped along by the vocal talents Ali Thompson and Teleri Williams, drums by Ram Balakumar, a special guest appearance from ‘Sue the Chef’ and Amy Hawarden giving the final speech (sorry if I’ve missed anyone off!)

The following day our annual Electives information event was held for the Module 4 students with several year 5s coming to give information along with ex Keele University FY1s and our 2 Teaching Fellows, Drs Morse and Ali.

We have continued our regular Pub Quiz evenings with a wide variety of team names and winners and our sports evenings continue to be well attended with Swimming, Football and Squash currently on offer.

Other events currently in the planning stages are the annual Severn Hospice Dragon Boat Race (26th June), the SaTH Cricket Festival where we will be defending our title and of course the obligatory end of year summer party. More details to be announced soon – keep your eye on our Facebook page (Keele Medics in Shropshire)!

Staff News

Dr Gibson joins celebrity cyclists for Women’s Cancer Challenge 18-27th November 2011

Sheena Clinical Lecturer in Medical Education and Penkridge GP, Dr Sheena Gibson is getting on her bike and taking positive action in the fight against breast, ovarian and cervical cancers.

Other cyclists include television presenters Dawn Porter (from Super Slim Me and My Breasts Could Kill Me) and Aggie MacKenzie best known for her Channel 4 series How clean is My House?

They will be challenging ourselves as part of an all women team of cyclists riding through Kenya to support the work of three charities:

Breast Cancer Care
Jo’s Cervical Cancer Trust
Ovarian Cancer Action

The group will cycle around 400km over five days-both on and off roads- experiencing Africa away from the usual tourist trails.

As well as training hard ,including cycling around Penkridge on home visits, Sheena also needs to raise £2800 to support the work of Action v Cancer charities and is asking for help to reach her target.

If you do feel able to help her justgiving website is : http://www.justgiving.com/Sheena-Gibson0

Many Thanks

Dr Sheena Gibson

Congratulations

Professor Andrew Hassell on being awarded a personal Chair
Dr Fiona Leslie – Deputy Hospital Dean at University Hospital of North Staffordshire
Dr Andrew Morris – Teaching Fellow in Bioscience
Dr Divya Chari – Senior Lecturer
Dr Alex Clark – Deputy Director of Assessment
Dr Kim Jensen – Module 2 Co-Lead
Dr Stuart McBain who has been appointed to Senate for Medicine starting his term in September.

Achievements/Qualifications

Mr Steven Harper – Degree in Applied Computing
Mrs Elaine Weston – NVQ3 in Business Administration
Mrs Ann Clowes – ECDL
Miss Julie Wilde – ECDL
Mrs Margaret Bourke -ECDL
Miss Marie Brownsett – NVQ3 in Business Administration and qualified First Aider
Miss Hannah Reidy – ILM Level 2 in Team Leading and NVQ3 in Business Administration
Mrs Janet Barber – ILM Level 2 in Team Leading
Mr Steven Clipstone – ILM Level 2 in Team Leading
Mrs Carol Dasey – ILM Level 2 in Team Leading
Miss Sarah Jones - ILM Level 2 in Team Leading
Miss Cherie Poole – NVQ3 in Business Administration
Mrs Denise Probyn – ILM Level 3 in Team Leading
Miss Heather Rushton – ECDL Part 2

Student News

GP Society Launch Event

Thursday 16th December 2010 marked the start of a new student society aimed at those interested in a career in general practice or those who were just a little curious about it! Unfortunately, due to heavy snow, our guest speaker Prof David Haslam was sadly unable to attend the event, but promises to visit us again later.

However, we deeply appreciated many key members of staff such as Prof Wass, Prof McKinley and Dr Kay Mohanna who kindly pitched in and spoke to the society at such short notice. This was appreciated by the students who also got the opportunity to enjoy seeing pictures of some of the other Academic GP team members in their slightly ‘younger’ days…and even in their nappies!

I thank the society’s committee who have worked very hard to get this society up and running and also to those students who helped out on the day itself.

The success of this initial event has given the society a great start, so please watch this space for future events that the society will be organising.

Dr Milan M. Mehta - Clinical Teaching Fellow

Fancy a challenge?

Do you need a way to stand out from the crowd? Have you ever thought about actually entering into any of the many competitions we are constantly being emailed about? Maybe you should.

Extra-curricular activities have always been encouraged and this can include writing essays for medical competitions. It doesn’t necessarily need to be in a field you are hoping to enter in to either! Giving yourself that little extra challenge will also appeal as you will appear to be a well-rounded student who has not let the rest of medicine slip to the wayside because of their fixed interest in one particular field.

Entering competitions like this is a great way of expanding your horizons as well as your knowledge base. It also looks good on a CV. We are constantly being scrutinised and compared and if you want to get ahead you need to make a little effort.

I previously enjoyed writing an essay for a competition about Tourette’s syndrome. I have no previous understanding of the condition so I enjoyed the challenge but I also feel I benefitted by expanding on my medical knowledge and developing my writing skills. Getting published is stressed more and more as you progress, so why not get a little practice in now so that when it is important, you have the relevant skills and confidence in writing large pieces of work.

So, now you know how simple it is why not try it for yourself. Watch out for future emails about writing essays or articles, and keep an eye out for competitions run the by the Royal Colleges themselves and other medical associations. The Royal Society of Medicine has a very large list of essay competitions upon their website!

Claire Coles - Module 4 student

KMS Christmas Ball 2010

The Keele Medical Society held its annual Christmas ball on Wednesday 8th of December. The evening was a fantastic success and a good time was had by all. The ball was an Oscars themed night with over 20 Oscars given out as prizes on the night, awards were given for ‘most likely to be a TV doctor’ and ‘most likely to win a Nobel prize’ to name but a couple. It was held for the first time at the stunning location of Crewe Hall. Pre-dinner cocktails, a professional photographer in Crewe Hall’s resplendent entrance, and a harpist kept the guests entertained before they made their way to the suite for dinner and dancing. It was a fantastic evening and great to see so many students from across the years. A big thank you to MPS and MDU for donating money for the ball and the KMS committee for doing such an great job and for all those who came along to enjoy the night!

Sophie Bell-Syer - Module 3 student

Keele Medics Charity Society Fashion Show (KMCS)

On Thursday 17th February a Fashion Show was organised by the KMS at the Students Union. Keele students (including several medical students) strutted their stuff all in aid of Newlife Foundation.

The charity provides essential help and support to disabled children in the local community. There was a great turnout and guests had a fantastic time. Many thanks to Sarah Lockey who was a super host and to Professor Wass who made a generous donation, helping our grand total for Newlife to reach £700!

We are happy to inform you that in its first year of existence the KMCS raised almost £2000 for local charities. We hope the society goes from strength to strength in future years.

Muhamad Jasim - Chair of KMCS

Medics Summer Ball, 2011

The annual Medic's Summer Ball this year was held at the Best Western Moat House in Festival Park and hosted by Keele Surgical Society. It was a very enjoyable evening and we had the pleasure of entertaining 125 guests. The night started at 7pm with drinks and mingling, food was served from 8pm which included traditional Staffordshire oatcakes with cheese and chutney as a starter. The UHNS Orchestra conducted by Mr Satur played to us through the meal with a mixture of classical and popular modern pieces. Games on the night included a comical surgical quiz which included questions about the world's largest stools and a balloon Puppet competition, the winners receiving a bottle of wine. We enjoyed the company of Mr Durkin, Mr Duffy, Mr Morgan and Mr Kirby, the Surgical Society's President. The winners of our Case Presentation evening were also announced, the best Pre-Clinical presentation went Anna Dale (2nd year) and best Clinical presentation went to Ruth Doolin (4th year). A Raffle was also held with all proceeds, £150, going to our chosen charity Mercy Ships. We finished the night off with a disco and dancing. A big thank you to everyone who came and all who helped organise it.

Matt Roughley - Module 4 student and former chairperson of KSS

National Marrow Day

Marrow

MarrowT1 Keele Marrow is part of the student branch of the charity Anthony Nolan which runs the UK’s largest and most successful stem cell register. The register is used to save lives by matching donors to people who desperately need a lifesaving stem cell transplant. Often a transplant is the last hope for a person suffering from leukaemia, lymphoma or myeloma. As part of Anthony Nolan we run recruitment events throughout the year to recruit students onto the stem cell register. We also run fundraising events to raise important funds for Anthony Nolan. It costs £120 to place one person onto the stem cell register, and Anthony Nolan carries out lots of vital research which also requires funding.

Friday 25th February was the first National Marrow Day which MarrowT2 Anthony Nolan is hoping will help to raise awareness of the work the charity does as well as provide a fundraising opportunity. For National Marrow Day, Keele Marrow held a few events throughout the week. We held a pub quiz, “wear blue” for Marrow days on Thursday 24th February for the third years, and on Friday 25th February for the first and second years and a cake sale in conjunction with the Paediatric society. On the wear blue for Marrow days we asked people to wear something blue for the day and donate a £1 to Marrow for this. All the events were very successful and we raised £227 in the week which is brilliant. We would like to thank everyone who supported us in the first National Marrow Day and hope you continue to support us at future events.

Kayleigh Campion - Module 3 student

Book Reviews

Get ahead! SURGERY 250 SBAs for finals
Theepa Nicholls and Saran Shatikumar

This book is divided into five practice papers, each containing 50 questions with answers and detailed explanations to each question at the end of each practice paper. Should you feel the need to tackle specific topics there is a contents page with clearly marked subjects as well as an index page.

The book is written by specialist doctors in the University Medical Assessment Partnership (UMAP) style that is adopted by Manchester and Keele curriculum.

The book covers topics that are expected to be in finals and hence students should know. It is a good revision guide, flagging up topics that students might not be familiar with or did not think to revise. Most of the questions are basic; however some are more challenging and allow you to assess how well you are doing. There are in depth explanations for each question, so much so that they help you in answering the questions that occur in later sections. Although there are 250 questions there is a great deal of overlap, similar questions recur and by the end of the book you have a good understanding of very common topics. To get the most from this book it would be better to undertake all the questions and then read the explanations to really assess how well you actually know the topics and how to direct revision.

It is worth undertaking these questions throughout the year and test how well you are doing, however, it is expensive for just 250 questions.

After going through the book and sitting the exams I believe that it is a valuable tool to be used with other review books.

Student Rating: 3 star

Reviewed by R Gill – 5th year student

Get ahead! SPECIALITIES 250 SBAs for finals
Bach F, Mills E, Cartledge P, Roberts H.

This is book is from a series of Get ahead! books written by doctors that have recently qualified.

The layout of the books is divided into five practice papers with each section providing answers with in depth explanations. The topics range from obstetrics and gynaecology to psychiatry and paediatrics. The questions vary from management to investigations and diagnosis. The questions follow the University Medical Assessment Partnership (UMAP) style of MCQs that is adopted by Manchester and Keele curriculum.

This book is by no means comprehensive but a valuable book if the student is finding it difficult to find an avenue of revision to follow. The highlight of this book is without doubt the in depth and up-to-date explanations for each question, it covers the options that were not the answers. The book also refers the student to national guidelines that are available online for further reading.

After having taken the final exams, I think this book is suited for finalist students, however, the downside to this book is the limited number of questions available. Ideally this book can be used through the clinical years to dip in to. It is costly for a book that only supplies 250 questions, of which many questions occur again in the different practice papers, only worded differently.

Overall, this book comes recommended to complement revision.

Student Rating: 4 star

Reviewed by R Gill – 5th year student

Memorizing Medicine: A Revision Guide
Paul Bentley

When I first received this book I found the cover visually appealing. To me it looked very interesting and dynamically colourful and it also gave a good idea of what to expect.

As a medical student I do not have time to use complicated tables of contents when I am looking for a topic, especially on the wards, and this book has a very easy to use, logically arranged by topic, table of contents.

The content of the book is amazing, the funny yet catchy drawings, the memorable mnemonics, the easy to understand format, the amazingly accurate yet short-handed notes, I must admit I am so impressed. I have never been good at making brief notes and this book is a life saver because my notes are sometimes longer than necessary. I have never expected a medical book to be so entertaining. Plus the small format makes the book so “handy” in almost all circumstances, for instance you can use it in the train, in the back garden sun bathing, waiting for the bus etc.

I studied from it for my exams and I found it a very valuable addition to my lectures and PBL cases.

Only one thing could improve this book- a bit of colour in the content would make it a perfect revision book.

To summarise, this book is to the point, engaging, accurate and easy to use for the fast paced student of the 21st century.

Student Rating: 5 star

Reviewed by Ana Dale – Module 2 student

Complete Self Assessment for Medical Finals
Kinesh Patel & Neil Patel

This book is an MCQ and EMCQ question book, designed for students undertaking their final medical school exams. It has an array of true/ false questions followed by extended multiple choice questions, and then usefully, some x-ray based questions at the end of each chapter. Each chapter questions a different aspect of medical school finals, with the final chunk of questions aimed at the more intimidating topic of “Public health and statistics”.

The structure of the book itself is predictably, questions at the start, answers with short explanations at the end. However, the content of the questions themselves is perhaps an area of more contention. Speaking from a purely self-interested point of view: (with finals just a few weeks away..!) I would question whether or not the design of these questions will be wholly useful to a Keele medical student, taking our exams. The True or False mode of questioning knowledge is not one often used by Keele medical school, and as such they are of more limited value. That said, the knowledge needed to correctly identify a true or false answer was, in many, cases quite subtle - with more than one colleague of mine caught out (especially after a couple of rounds on a Friday night..!).

The EMCQ sections are however, a lot closer to the types of question that Keele seem to use more frequently, and the picture questions are truly useful - there are 150 and 50 of these respectively.

The book itself recommends a pass mark of 60%, and if accurate, may reassure your confidence!

Recommended; a good practice run, if perhaps at times a little simple.

Student Rating: 4 star

Reviewed by Drew Kinmond – Module 4 student

Many thanks to Hodder Education for donating the books.

If you would like to become a book reviewer, please take a look at the website http://www.hoddereducation.co.uk/HigherEducation.aspx and let me know which books you would like to review.

Hello…………

Keele Campus
Mr Brian Millward – Part-time Anatomy Technician
Mrs Gillian Tomkins – Part-time Teaching Support Administrator
Dr Sarah Yardley – NIHR Clinical Lecturer in Medical Education Research

UHNS Hospital Campus
Miss Rajpreet Deol – Part-time receptionist at UGMS1
Miss Anitha Velusamy – Clinical Teaching Fellow in Obs & Gynae
Mr Daniel Bednarski – Trainee IT/AV Technician

Shropshire Campus
Dr David Wallbridge – Deputy Hospital Dean
Mrs Nancy Moreton – Clinical Practice Instructor

Stafford Campus
Mrs Susan Harris who is temporary cover for Mrs Melanie Woolliscroft (Undergraduate Manager at Mid Staffs) whilst she is off on maternity leave. Susan is due to commence in August.

and Goodbye

UHNS Hospital Campus
Ms Elaine Mann
Mr Richard George
Mr Vere Carlin
Dr Charles Pantin

Shropshire Campus
Dr Mark Prescott
Dr Kevin Eardley

Combined Healthcare Trust
Dr Helen Thorley

GP Tutor
Dr Kevan Thorley

and finally

Congratulations - Patter of tiny feet

Stork Dr Paul Horrocks and his wife Kerry on the birth of their son Joseph Harry on Boxing Day 2010

Mrs Melanie Woolliscroft and her husband Neil on the birth of their son Ethan Christopher on 21st June 2011.

We are always looking for items of general interest, forthcoming events etc. If you would like to contribute to the next edition of MedNews, due out December 2011, please contact Miss Sarah Philpott on s.philpott@hfac.keele.ac.uk