Medical Education Fellows blog

It has been a busy few months for the Medical Education Fellows, getting several projects up and running, with many more in the pipeline! Here’s a roundup of a few projects that we have set up recently:

Clinical Skills days

We were handed down a clinical skills day teaching plan from our predecessors which we have adapted and run every few weeks for our new fourth and fifth year medical students during their induction week. This day involved following a patient case, practicing clinical skills and interpreting investigations as the patient requires them throughout the day.

We’ve had great feedback from this day with students saying:

‘The clinical skills day was informative and enjoyable with a great range of interactivity and information to recap our knowledge in the context of a great case’

‘Really useful, great to cover so much in a day’

We also ran our first Physician Associate Student Skills Day in November which was well received!

Last month we welcomed our first batch of Kent and Medway Medical School third year medical students, who will be on placement at MTW for the whole year! They had a jam-packed induction week, ending with practical sessions on cannulation, catheterisation, injections and blood taking at the end of the week. The students all seem excited for their placements in the Trust and we are excited to have them with us! We are also involved in their weekly geriatric seminars which take place over four hours on a Wednesday.

Virtual On-Call 

We have recruited a team of doctors to help us set up a Virtual On-Call programme at both Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells for our fourth and fifth year medical students. Students are given a bleep and asked to review virtual patients (in the form of patient notes) across the hospital and complete tasks such as prescribing and blood test interpretation. The students then finish with a handover to the facilitators as if they are handing over at the end of their shift to the hospital night team.  This has been well-received by students who have continued to sign up for further sessions as they have found it useful and enjoyable.

Upcoming events

We are in the process of organising a Christmas-themed Medical Escape room for our fourth and fifth year students which will be held at the beginning of December.

We are also working with the Wellbeing team and Wellbeing Champions to put on a Christmas Wellbeing Extravaganza to be held cross-site in December for Junior Doctors which will include mince pies, a Christmas quiz and much more!