Student perspective on Medicine in Society 1

The following document has been created directly from collating student feedback on Medicine in Society 1

These are activities that students regarded very positively

The three most common comments are that students want lots of patient contact, well-organised days and that they value visits to helpful community organisations

• Regular, frequent patient contact
• They often report (particularly towards the start of the year) that they appreciate thinking about the questions to ask patients beforehand, e.g. brainstorming as a group with the tutor facilitating
• Home visits
• Seeing real life clinical appointments
• Students are happy to see patients in groups as long as there is good facilitation and each student has a role, e.g. one takes the history, another makes notes, another cosntructs timeline, others observe and throw in extra questions
• Clearly communicated structure and organisation to the days
• Ensure there is a clear activity for everyone, e.g. some students practising clinical skills whilst others interview a patient
• Group discussion/brainstorm at the beginning of the day to establish everyone's baseline knowledge
• Written timetable for the days
• Written guidance for reflective log, including markscheme
• Written guidance for poster presentation, including markscheme. To be clear about poster expectations from early in the year so students have time to prepare
• Good communication between GP tutor and community tutor to ensure no duplication in the day
• Community visits (examples below)
• Special needs school
• Food bank
• District nurses
• Homeless shelter
• Midwife-led birth centre
• Jewish community centre
• Elderly care home
• Multiple sclerosis centre
• Stroke charity centre
• Alzheimer's society
• Youth care home
• Local gym
• Local community garden centre

There are a number of other activities that students have found helpful:

• Regular variation in learning activities
• facilitated peer-to-peer discussion and debriefing
• Moral/ethical debates
• Real life cases and examples to talk through
• Role plays
• Practical demonstrations of clinical skills
• Feedback
• Frequent and constructive feedback on the learning log
• Evidence that tutors are responsive to feedback during the placement
• Debriefing with tutors after meeting with patients
• Being given an opportunity to discuss how they (students) would prefer teaching to be delivered
• One-to-one meetings with the tutor to exchange feedback
• Getting different members of the practice team to teach students. They particularly appreciate junior doctors or medical students from more senior years
• Free lunch!

These are some of the activities that students found less helpful

• Days of discussion with no patient contact
• No opportunity to speak with patients individually - all patient contact done as a group
• Lectures
• Long lunch breaks with no clear tasks
• Non-constructive or no feedback on the learning logs