Funded mini-projects

 

(531) Medical student views on undergraduate psychiatry education

N.B. The information below is authored by the mini-project applicants, not by staff of the subject centre. This text represents the views and opinions of the mini-project team only, not those of the subject centre or its affiliates.

Principal investigator

Nisha Dogra, University of Leicester

Full list of project partners

Dr Simon Budd - lecturer, Leeds University
Matthew Mak (medical student at Imperial College, London)
Michael Eyre (medical student at King's College, London)

Topic

This is a MINI-PROJECT proposal

Background

The Royal College of Psychiatrists has commissioned an Undergraduate Education Psychiatric Scoping Group to establish best educational practice in undergraduate psychiatry. There is evidence that students who experience quality undergraduate teaching are more likely to enter into a psychiatric career. In 2004, the Association of University Teachers in Psychiatry commissioned a small project to establish the current learning and teaching of psychiatry in UK medical schools. The first stage consisted of a questionnaire, distributed to all educational leads for psychiatry in UK medical schools. The second stage consisted of semi-structured telephone interviews with psychiatric lead teachers and other key informants. We also gained service user perspectives on the psychiatric curriculum through the use of focus groups. This work has been disseminated and the Scoping Group is using the findings to develop psychiatric education in the UK. However, the student perspective was missing from the original project as at the time we did not have sufficient resources for an extension. In Leeds, as part of their special study module, under the tutorship of Dr Simon Budd, some students investigated undergraduate attitudes towards psychiatry at their medical school. We would like to undertake this type of work on a greater scale to inform the work of the Scoping Group. The aim of our work would be to establish the views of undergraduate medical students towards psychiatry, views about their clinical attachment and views as to how they think psychiatric education could be improved. We want to ask students what they think would help in making their psychiatric education more engaging and effective as an educational placement.

Proposed activities

Modify questionnaire used by Leeds as part of a specialy study module and develop additional components of questionnaire by end of September

Pilot questionnaire (At Leeds) early October

Distribute questionnaire after modification – mid October
Send reminder – end October

Analyse data - November

Use data as part of the reports above – December

Proposed outcomes

Two of the main remits of the overall scoping group project are to:

Produce a Best practice guide for clinical teachers. This would highlight the approaches they could take in their clinical teaching to enhance student experience

Students guide to psychiatry education – this would highlight for students what they can contribute to their placement and how they can help their clinical teachers provide engaging, effective and educational placements.

Potentially all students who undergo a psychiatry placement stand to benefit.

The benefits for psychiatry as a whole are great. The Royal College is the key body that influences psychiatry and the Scoping Group has been commissioned by them to establish best practice. The guides that we have agreed to produce will potentially benefit every clinical teacher and student who accesses them. We will aim to make the guides available on the web as that increases availability. We will also email students and clinical leads to make sure they are aware of these guides. A launch could be part of the dissemination process.

The Scoping Group is fortunate in that it has excellent links with the Subject Centre (Suzanne Hardy is a member of the Scoping Group). This relationship was developed so that we could inform practice but also be informed of practice in other areas that might impact on our own work. Because of this relationship we are able to reach a wider constituency (other disciplines within medicine and other mental health disciplines) with both guides. We have links with the Mental Higher in Higher Education project through Suzanne Hardy and Nisha Dogra. Both guides could form a template for other specialities to consider. It is unlikely that we could include the guides in an overall student handbook as students are likely to be overwhelmed by the amount of information they receive. The greatest impact might be through a web link to various sites where the guides could be accessed. There is no reason that the guides could not be available from several relevant sites e.g. medical school student websites, subject centre website and the Royal College of Psychiatrists website.

Expertise of grant holder and project team

Nisha Dogra – the lead applicant has undertaken several medical education research projects. She has experience of both qualitative and quantitative research. Nisha also led the AUTP project described above and the LTSN funded focus group work with service users. She is Chair of the Undergraduate Psychiatry Education Scoping Group and able to link this work with other Royal College groups to ensure the project findings are well used and disseminated. Simon Budd is the representative from Leeds. He has run Special Study Modules with students to explore their views about their psychiatry placements. He is involved in integrating psychiatry into other aspects of the medical curriculum to enhance student experience. Matthew Mak is the BMJ Medical Student Committee Representative and thereby ahs access to student bodies and can enable engagement with them for this project. Michael Eyre is Co-president of the Kings Psychiatric Society. This is a special interest group and their commitment ensures we can capture the views of those with a particular interest in the subject as well as that of the general student body.

Similar work

Contact details

Grant holder: Nisha Dogra, University of Leicester
Amount awarded: £4,954.80
Subject centre project contact: Suzanne Hardy

Reports

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