Issue 2 Winter 2000 Welcome to the 2nd edition of the - School of ...

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Developments in PrestonFor many years Preston and other hospitals across Central Lancashire and the Ribble Valleyhave hosted medical students from Manchester. Numbers have been small and arrangementsvariable, however. It is with great enthusiasm that the primary and secondary health caresectors of Lancashire look forward to providing the full clinical course for 30 students a yearfrom 2003. This initiative will provide a major impetus across a range of activities to includethe development of teaching methods, research and development, closer links with academicmedicine, and the additional motivation that will come from meeting the demands of themodern medical student.Secondary care teaching will take place in the hospitals of Blackburn, Blackpool, Burnley,Chorley and Preston, with the hospitals of Morecambe Bay supporting the University ofLiverpool. The population served is over a million, with some 3500 beds and 450consultants, and provides a full spectrum of social groups. An extensive range of specialistand tertiary services are provided, with the exception of organ transplantation, with mostbeing sited in Preston. Recent capital investment has taken account of the needs of medicalstudents with an Education Centre at Royal Preston Hospital costing over £3M being due forcompletion in late 2002. Preliminary discussions have already taken place with theUniversity of Central Lancashire about providing a local ‘social’ environment, and the jobdescription for a Hospital Dean has been finalised. This is a key post as it is essential thatthere is a senior and committed individual with the dedicated time to lead us into the futureand ensure all arrangements are in place for 2003.Peter Morgan-CapnerMedical Director
Web developments to support the curriculumInformation and communications technology (ICT) is assuming increasing importance inhigher education. The School of Medicine initially made it available as a resource for moreIT-literate students (hopefully for more than contacting their friends and lovers via Hotmail)and a means of communication between academic and administrative staff. Gradually, it ischanging from an essentially reactive resource to one that takes an active part in learning.Good examples have been Sue Andrew’s CD image bank, ‘Pathpics’, a sophisticated learningmanagement and timetabling system developed by Mark Foster, then a Year 3 student, aproject to enhance communication between community and central sites, and various sourcesof material supporting PBL cases. But what else can ICT offer? Chloe Baxter, now in her final year, was prominent in leading a move to enhance the studentexperience of PBL, and disseminating understanding of its rationale and process. Successfulinduction sessions to PBL in Y1 were run at the start of the present and last academic yearsbut no supporting materials for students and tutors were available. A students’ and tutors’guide to PBL was written, but it was hard for the rather sterile medium of the printed word tobring to life all that can be good about PBL. Earlier this year, courageous Y3 students, after15 minutes to read through a case they had not seen before, went through the ‘8-step’ processin front of the Media Centre video cameras. More impressive still, they came together at alater date to record a ‘report-back’ tutorial. These completely unscripted sessions providedample illustrative material of the complex cognitive and social processes that go on in wellfunctioningPBL. In the hands of the Media Centre, who meticulously edited and digitised thematerial, and Catherine Lee, a Computing Science MSc student, ‘ParaBLe’ was born. Briefvideo clips were integrated into an attractively-presented textual description of Y3-5 PBL,with separate ‘paths’ for prospective tutors, group chairs, scribes and group members tofollow, and (hopefully) user-friendly descriptions of the principles and process. ParaBLe canbe accessed via www.hop.man.ac.uk, but don’t even think of downloading the video clipsunless your computer is connected to the fast university/hospital network (or you don’t mindgiving up your home telephone line for about 24 hours while 80 mebabytes of datadownload!). The next step will be to make the same material available on CD or DVD.…ParaBle graphic ? still shot from cdrom There is a strong emphasis on clinical skills in the Manchester curriculum but focus groupresearch conducted on students during an options project by Alistair Craig showed asurprising lack of awareness of clinical skills in the ‘curriculum in action’. Neil Maredia andLiam Hosie, while in their fourth year, worked with me to devise a ‘Skills Portfolio’ toincrease awareness of skills but subsequent research showed it to be a complete failurebecause it gave students no guidance about the type of performance they were aspiring to.SkillsBase (also accessible at the URL above, username ‘Andy’ Password ‘Andy’) has thesame philosophy but tabulates the skills curriculum flexibly by module, type of skill, or levelof competence attained. It provides a facility for keeping a reflective diary of progress inacquiring skills, and comparing ones’ self-, peer and tutor assessments with those of youryear group. More important still, it is a gateway to a rich and fast-growing menu of resourceson skills. It offers skills ‘recipes’, videos, web links, a self-assessment facility and even asmall number of OSCE checklists, until now jealously guarded from student view. Skillsexperts are being recruited to offer students an e-mail question and answer facility to supporttheir learning. It is too soon to evaluate SkillsBase’s effectiveness, but we predict that usage
Page 1 and 2: Issue 2 Winter 2000Welcome to the 2
Page 4 and 5: NEWS FROM YEARS 1 & 2The new academ
Page 6 and 7: Central Manchester ReportThe Centra
Page 8 and 9: Salford SectorUndergraduate Educati
Page 10 and 11: Usage of IT Facilities at the Pilot
Page 12: Developments in the Final Examinati
Page 15 and 16: University of St. Andrews Medical S
Page 17: Undergraduate medical education at

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