The Centre for Excellence in Developing Professionalism opens at ...

Cover Story
Emotional practice
Helping accelerate professional development in medicine
T
he University is leading the way
in medical education with a new
initiative which recognises trust,
empathy and communication are the key to
a healthy doctor/patient relationship.
The Higher Education Funding Council
(HEFCE) has awarded £4.5 million
to develop a Centre for Excellence in
Developing Professionalism in Medical
Students. This will allow the University
to build on its internationally-renowned
medical curriculum which is structured
around Problem-Based Learning (PBL),
and integrates the learning of basic medical
science with clinical practice.
The five-year project will involve
developing a programme of teaching
that will ensure students graduate with
the professional attitudes increasingly
recognised as important by the NHS in 21st
Century medicine. When fully developed,
the programme is likely to be extended to
medical schools across the UK.
Dr Tom Kennedy, Consultant
Rheumatologist and Director of Clinical
Studies in the Faculty of Medicine, has
been working with Dr Helen O’Sullivan,
Project Director, to build the reflective
learning aspect of the programme by
developing log books that score students
for participation in class and role play.
“Trust, empathy and communication are
absolutely integral to professionalism and it
is these attitudes and qualities that we are
trying to instil among future doctors in this
project,” he said.
“But it’s not about communication
for its own sake. The development of
the patient/doctor relationship has huge
benefits. In Rheumatology, for example,
it’s very important that we encourage
patients to play an active role in their
disease management.
“We try and foster a relationship of
openness and mutual trust. Patients
welcome this – they are becoming more
pro-active in learning about their disease
through the internet and frequently want to
understand more about their condition.”
The new programme will place huge
emphasis on extended role play to
challenge students in their approach to
learning. A session focusing on a patient
with alcoholism, for example, will require
the student to spend several hours outside
the classroom researching the condition
and considering how alcoholism affects
sufferers and their families. Other types
of role play might include ethical issues
such as explaining the options open to
a Jehovah’s Witness whose child needs
a blood transfusion, or helping a relative
to feel comfortable with a decision they
have made to withdraw life support to
a loved one.
The Medical Professionalism
programme will also develop mechanisms
of recognising and rewarding excellence
in clinical teaching for staff and enshrining
within the medical curriculum a system for
personal development, career planning
and reflection on professionalism that
allows a seamless progression to
postgraduate practice.
Professor Ian Gilmore, Consultant
Physician and Gastroenterologist at
the Royal Liverpool University Hospital and
Honorary Professor at the University of
Liverpool, performed the official opening,
before another special ceremony took
place. A historic plaque in memory of
Lucretia Rathbone, whose husband William
Rathbone VI established the Liverpool
Training School and Home for Nurses
in 1862, has been restored and placed
in Cedar House. William’s greatgranddaughter,
Jenny Rathbone, unveiled
this memorial on behalf of her family.
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