Summer update

from the Undergraduate Primary Care Education Unit

Aug 19, 2024

A message from Dr Arti Maini, Director for Undergraduate Primary Care Education

As I write, it continues to be a time of change and challenge in primary care, and in wider society, both globally and locally. The recent racist and Islamophobic riots, abuse and violence across the UK will be of deep concern to us all. We are aware of reports of healthcare workers being targeted with abuse and violence, particularly those from ethnic minorities. We stand with Imperial College London and the School of Medicine in rejecting all forms of violence and hatred.

Many of you will be affected by these events and will be taking steps to ensure safety for yourselves, your practice teams, students and patients.

Thank you for your ongoing efforts and commitment to training and supporting our medical students during this very difficult time. Please get in touch with our team at any time for further support as needed.

In this edition of the newsletter, you will hear more about some new members of our team, inspiring updates about the brilliant work of our students and GP tutors in primary care, along with useful information about professional development and teaching opportunities available.

Please do get in touch if you have any thoughts, feedback or questions about this newsletter or about undergraduate primary care more generally - we would love to hear from you.

Wishing you all the very best,

Arti Maini
Director for Undergraduate Primary Care Education 

Inspiring students to practice sustainable healthcare

Sustainable healthcare education is a key priority in the undergraduate medical curriculum. Two of our students, Alexandra Cardoso Pinto and Hollie Meyers, have been working with our team as ‘student shapers’ to develop our sustainable healthcare teaching in the primary care curriculum.

Click to read more about their work

In our new short video, Principal Clinical Teaching Fellow, Dr Neha Ahuja, medical student Hollie Meyers and Dr Tamsin Ellis, community GP tutor, London-based GP and Director and Co-Chair of Greener Practice, speak more about sustainable healthcare in education, including practical tips for GP tutors on teaching key sustainable healthcare concepts in practice.

Information for patients on medical student teaching

Patients are our best teachers in primary care! Please feel free to use this information leaflet and sign for patients to inform them about your practice’s role in teaching medical students from Imperial and explain what this means for them. You may wish to display them on your website or in your waiting rooms, whilst of course still ensuring that individual patients have consented in advance to medical student involvement in consultations. We hope these will be useful in facilitating seeking informed consent from patients to participate in consultations and/or other teaching opportunities involving medical students.

Download the information leaflet

Download the sign

Teaching opportunity - Year 5 Specialty Choice Placements

Did you know that all students undertake an SCP (Specialty Choice Placement) in year 5? This is a 3-week block where students can explore a speciality that they have enjoyed in more depth or perhaps try something completely new that isn’t covered in the MBBS curriculum.

Do you have a special interest as a GP? Or does your practice offer something unusual in addition to your day-to-day clinics? If so, an SCP could be for you! SCPs run 12 times a year from July – May and you can sign up for as many or as few rotations that would work for you and your practice. The timetable is flexible and students usually spend around 7 sessions per week at the practice. Payment for the placement is £2,016 per student, per 3-week placement (based on 7 sessions/week). Usually, SCPs are designed for a smaller number of students (1-2) and we can work with you to support development of your SCP.

If you have an idea about an SCP that you would like to set up at your practice, we would love to talk to you more about this. Please complete the form below and we will be in touch to arrange a call.

Specialty Choice Placement Form

Have your say – community GP tutors educational needs survey 2024

Whether you have been teaching our medical students for many years or are new to teaching, we would like to hear from you about how we can support your educational needs as GP tutors.

Please take a few minutes to complete our short survey.

Click here to complete

Your responses are anonymous and will help us to plan what CPD we can offer you.

Faculty Development Team

Dr Sian Powell & Nadine Engineer

Meet the new members of our team

Dr Simisola Onanuga, Community Collaboration Lead

Simi has recently joined the team as Community Collaboration Lead. She is a recent medical graduate from Imperial and her role involves facilitating community engagement in Undergraduate Primary Care Education

Michael Cole, Principal Teaching Fellow in Equality, Diversity & Inclusion

Michael has recently been appointed as Principal Teaching Fellow in Equality, Diversity and Inclusion within our team and is supporting the development and implementation of best practice. Michael has a background in Sports and Exercise Therapy and the field of EDI.

Dr Nikul Kotecha, Principal Clinical Teaching Fellow in Primary Care Design, Evaluation and Assessment

Dr Nikul Kotecha has recently started as Principal Clinical Teaching Fellow in Primary Care Design, Evaluation and Assessment. He works as a GP in a in Oxfordshire.

Dr Naa Okantey, Principal Clinical Teaching Fellow in Primary Care Design, Evaluation and Assessment

Dr Naa Okantey has recently started as Principal Clinical Teaching Fellow in Primary Care Design, Evaluation and Assessment. She works as a GP at Brunswick Park Family Practice.

Annual Teachers Conference

On Thursday 6 June 2024, the Undergraduate Primary Care Education Unit hosted its Annual Teachers Conference. Themed "Innovative Partnerships: Learning and Working Together in Medical Education", this year we welcomed colleagues from the GP community to the new School of Public Health Building at White City Campus.

Dr Chaand Nagpaul CBE delivered the morning keynote address on inspiring and equipping our future generation of doctors. The afternoon keynote was by Maisie Irvine, a 3^rd year student from Norwich Medical School. She captivated the audience, sharing her experiences as an autistic medical student. She centred this around a creative enquiry piece, a poem she had written to reflect on her experience on her GP placement. She encouraged tutors to take a proactive approach with neurodivergent students considering environmental and learning adaptations.

The conference featured a dynamic mix of student presentations showcasing their prize-winning projects that they complete during their GP placements in each year of the course. They engaged with patients and community organisations to address various community priorities including flu vaccine access, healthcare access for refugees and a quality improvement project focused on a holistic, coaching approach to diabetes care.

Prize-winning medical students with placement leads

Read the full story

President’s Medals

We are delighted that Stephanie Powell, our Community Collaboration Lead, was awarded the President’s Medal for Excellence in Societal Engagement; Alexandra Cardoso Pinto, a recent ICSM medical graduate who worked closely with our team as a student, received a Student Award for Excellence in Societal Engagement; and Dr Jo Horsburgh, Deputy Director of MEdIC, received a President’s Medal for Excellence in Education Innovation at Imperial’s Staff Recognition Awards 2024.

Professor Ian Walmsley and Stephanie Powell

Read the full story

WATCCH

The WATCCH (Widening Access to Careers in Community Healthcare) programme supports young people in London who are interested in healthcare careers by providing work experience, mentoring and workshops. Thank you to all GP practices that are providing much valued work experiences placements. 60 school students attended an excellent introductory workshop in July where they met their mentors and explored health careers with a multi-professional panel. Students spoke of their excitement to learn about real life general practice during their work experience.

Inspire GP

Inspire GP is an exciting initiative to support undergraduate students to consider careers in general practice.

Our team has been working to support the ICSM General Practice and Public Health Student Society. They hosted their successful annual conference in April 2024 – discussions included navigating training pathways, the digital healthcare landscape and portfolio careers.

Imperial Undergraduate Primary Care Education

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