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Teaching and training in geriatric medicine |
| Email your comments The meeting, chaired by Professors Steve Allen and Tash Masud, had the objective of updating organisers of training programmes in Geriatric Medicine about some of the recent changes and to discuss how we can continue to develop and improve our training in the future. Winnie Wade, Director of Education at the Royal College of Physicians London, gave the opening talk on “How assessments contribute to successful training in Geriatric Medicine”. She gave a background explanation about how we are trying to meet the standards set by PMETB (Postgraduate Education and Training Board) for our assessment strategy. Further assessments need to be validated and confirmed reliable for use with registrars. In particular Case based discussion, Acute care and assessment tool, Patient survey, Teaching observation and Audit assessment need to be piloted. Volunteers to take this forward around the UK are actively being sought. As these are likely to become standard for all our specialty trainees it will be good to be involved in the development stage, so if you think you could help please let me know via the editor on the email link above. Professor Tash Masud gave a pragmatic talk on how to implement the new assessment methods. There was much discussion about the time involved and the number and type of assessments. Ian Hastie, London Postgraduate Dean gave assurance that some deaneries are tackling protected time for this work, at least for training programme directors. More work will need to be done in negotiations between deaneries and trust providers on ensuring sufficient time for educational supervisors, which currently are estimated at 1 hour per week per supervised trainee Professor James Barrett has been working very hard as director of the eportfolio project for the Royal Colleges of Physicians. He updated us on how the project is developing, showing us a draft of an educational supervisors report which we requested. Work is ongoing to make the whole system user friendly without it degenerating into a “tick box” affair and with active learning on the part of the trainee and useful formative contributions from the educational supervisor. In the afternoon Julia Newton, Senior Lecturer in Geriatric Medicine in Newcastle gave us a most uplifting talk on how academic training is shaping up based on the Walport recommendations. It had never been clear to me how this might work but she made it all seem simple, though obviously there will be significant challenges for trainees following this pathway. There was discussion about how the system might develop in those parts of the country which are not blessed with the excellent background of ageing research, both clinical and in the basic sciences, in the Northern Deanery. It was concerning that even in the Northern Deanery there are not sufficient numbers of interested and talented trainees with a background in Geriatric Medicine to fill the posts. This is a challenge to us all to attract the high achievers into academic training in our specialty. Adam Gordon who is a specialist registrar in Nottingham and is undertaking a Masters degree in Medical Education gave an excellent presentation on the role of the registrar in teaching undergraduates. He is currently conducting a survey of how well universities deliver the components of the BGS undergraduate curriculum in Geriatric Medicine. This is encouraging because we need to attract medical students into the specialty and the more we highlight what there is to learn and achieve in our specialty at an undergraduate level, the better chance we have of recruiting high level doctors into the specialty. Adam told us about the teaching log book which seems a valuable idea to help document experience in teaching and also to allow registrars to reflect on what they have achieved and how effective their teaching is. I am sure this is something the SAC will be considering in its review of the curriculum and assessment methods. Finally Ian Hastie, Postgraduate Dean for the London Deanery and geriatrician gave us a cheerful evaluation of what has happened with MMC (Modernising Medical Careers) and MTAS (Medical Training Application System) pointing out what we have learnt from mistakes and what will be happening in 2008. By the time you read this trainees will be applying for next year’s entry to specialist training which will “uncouple” Core Medical from Higher Specialist Training. There will be local appointment of approximately 90% of ST3 posts but 10% plus some newly funded ST3 posts will be advertised and appointed nationally in the specialty (maybe 40 posts). It is expected that applications for these posts will exceed considerably, the posts available for various reasons (doctors in fixed term specialty training appointments, locum posts, international medical graduates with HSMG (highly skilled migrant programme) status will all be able to apply. Overall it was an excellent day exposing lots of work to be done (develop assessment methods, update curriculum, develop the eportfolio, develop academic training programmes, promote good undergraduate teaching etc). All the powerpoint presentations of the day may be found on the Education Section of the BGS website, talking of which we hope to develop the BGS education website so this and other useful information such as the assessment tools are readily available to everyone. Chris Turnbull BGS Newsletter, March 2008 |