Category: Building Community

Welcome back from BMERG!

Posted on by sarah.allsop

Welcome back to teaching and the start of 2024! In our first blog of the new year, we wanted to take a moment to reflect and celebrate how far BMERG has come since launching just six months ago.

We our hugely proud of the work that staff and students have put into this so far with:

  • 36 blogs
  • 6 staff profiles
  • 4 publishing workshops
  • 3 online writing retreats
  • 3 journal clubs
  • 1 external speaker

Our blogs have been viewed more than 800 times, with over 500 visitors from across the globe.

Looking forward into 2024 we can’t wait to share more blogs with you all on education research, teaching innovation, publishing, events, and much more. Make sure to subscribe to this blog to get all the latest from BMERG!

We would also love to feature more Bristol staff and students as blog writers so if you would like to contribute to the site please get in touch with the co-leads Sarah Allsop (sarah.allsop@bristol.ac.uk) and Steve Jennings (steve.jennings@bristol.ac.uk), or our shared mailbox at brms-bmerg@bristol.ac.uk.

Here’s to a fantastic 2024 ahead!

Building Community: In conversation with Dr Megan Brown – Beyond the barriers: embracing potential in medical education research

Posted on by sarah.allsop

For the first in our new ‘In conversation with‘ Series*, our BMERG co-chair Dr Sarah Allsop invited Dr Megan Brown to join BMERG for an online webinar to share her experience as an educator. Here we share some of the topics from the discussion and Megan’s top tips for embracing potential in medical education research.

We started the conversation talking about career journeys. Megan shared her own journey into Medical Education, starting in a clinical role as a doctor, and moving through a PGCert in Medical Education and then a PhD, before continuing on to research associate roles. She described her journey as feeling initially ‘pick and mix’ or serendipitous, a sense that many of us in the medical education discipline have come to know and feel, but that actually every experience has things we can take away, things we can learn, and can ultimately shape who we are and what we do.

She talked of how the different aspects of her work, whether on identity, equality or creativity, have all come together to create an interesting portfolio of work about how we look at practices within medical education, and how this translates to workforce issues like wellbeing and staff retention.

Top Tip: Consider not only your current research project, but the body or programme of research that you are doing and how this fits together. All of us need to consider what our story is: what matters to us, what impact we want to have and ultimately what we want to be known for.

Megan also talked about the way in which networking, both in person and social media has been influential in her making connections. Social media can be a really helpful way to get exposure both to others in the discipline and exposure for your own work, but the drawback is it takes time and energy.

The landscape in social media is also changing and is not for everyone. Megan encouraged us that whilst networking is important and can help to make connections that open doors, this can be done in a number of different ways, via emails, list servers, meetings and conferences to name just a few.

She also impressed on us not to get tied up in hierarchy. It is really important to connect with your peers in the discipline; those much further ahead may be really interesting to talk to, but these conversations may not yield collaborations.

Top Tip: Connect with those peers who show similar interests, and ambition to create impact in the same area as you. We are stronger when we work together.

We then talked about publishing and if Megan had any advice for those wanting to publish their work. She started with the advice to think about impact and outputs early on the the research process. All research is done to try to solve a problem, uncover truths or to empower change for the better, and so will usually have an important audience. By thinking about who might want or need to know about your results in order to influence the change you want to see, you can think about which journal, book or other medium is the best place for your work. We also talked a little about the publishing ‘game’ and the inevitable rejection that comes with trying to disseminate our work, and not to get put off by this.

Top Tip: Think broadly about how and where to disseminate your work and how to make it translatable to others. It’s not just empirical research that can be shared through publication, but commentaries, innovations, evaluation and methods, so make sure to consider carefully the best match for your work.

Finally we talked a little about role models, and Megan shared that whilst she thinks her mentors have been really important for supporting her in her career goals, she does not really have specific role models. She explained that as she is not trying to replicate another individual, she takes inspiration from wide sources, both people and environments, and through her own creativity. This has inspired her to use creative methods within her research and led to a project using poetic enquiry, “Thoughts that breathe, and words that burn: poetic inquiry within health professions education“.

Top Tip: Take inspiration from everywhere, and don’t be afraid to try new things and look for ideas outside medical education to drive new and exciting innovation.

Part of Megan’s work is being involved with the NIHR Incubator for Clinical Education Research. The Incubator’s mission is support and promote careers in clinical education research and build a multi-professional community of practice in this space, including offering free events for educators.

The next free online event and discussion, “Getting Started In … coming up with an idea and writing a research question” will be held 12.45-1.45pm Wednesday December 20th, 2023. You can sign up for this webinar and others here.

Guest Speaker Biography

Dr Megan Brown (she/her) is a Senior Research Associate in Medical Education at Newcastle University, Director of Communications and Social Media at ASME, Co-chair for Dissemination at the NIHR Incubator for Clinical Education Research, and Vice-chair of the MedEd Collaborative. Megan trained as a doctor but made the transition to full-time academic practice. Megan’s research focuses on translating and applying educational theory to practice; workforce issues within the NHS; creative approaches to research; and EDI, particularly relating to improving the support and experiences of disabled healthcare professionals, as Megan is a disabled, and neurodivergent academic herself.

* BMERG ‘In conversation with’ Series. This series of events will bring some amazing speakers to speak and share their experiences in medical education and research. Please note some sessions are only accessible to University of Bristol Staff and Students.

Conference Report: The Academy of Medical Educators DMEG Annual Virtual Conference, 4th October 2023

Posted on by sarah.allsop

“Communities of Practice in Practice”

In BMERG’s latest report from 2023 conferences, Dr David Hettle reviews the Developing Medical Educators Group (DMEG) Annual Conference which was held online in October 2023.

The DMEG* conference provides a great opportunity for early-years educators (students, CTFs, or anyone else beginning their medical education journey) to meet others, feel inspired by a conference and presenters looking out for those at the early stage of their educator career and hear about the work of the Academy of Medical Educators and its Developing Medical Educators’ Group.

This year, the DMEG Annual Conference 2023 once again took place online, to promote access to such a conference to developing educators from across the UK and further afield. While the conference’s focus is primarily at developing medical educators and those in parallel training (medical, dental, veterinary or other healthcare science), everyone in medical education continues to develop and so there was something for everybody.

This year, keynote speakers included Dr Phil Xiu and Dr Linda Prescott-Clements, sharing their stories and journeys through healthcare education They inspired attendees to consider their next steps and all the different avenues to pursue this through, as well as recognising that medical educators are the “bridge between skill and passion” in delivering education to students, colleagues and patients.

There were also a number of excellent workshops, focussing on multiple aspects of medical education, such as clinical education scholarship, tips and tricks of teaching critical appraisal as well as developing and delivering workshops, and considering developing your career as a medical educator. View the DMEG 2023 conference programme here and the DMEG 2023 abstract book here.

DMEG also hosts both oral presentations and video pitches during their conferences, sharing novel work and innovations from participating medical educators. This year, the University of Bristol was well represented.

  • Last year’s University of Bristol lead Clinical Teaching Fellows (CTFs) Dr Alice Middleton (in collaboration Dr Gabriella Agathangelou), gave an oral presentation discussing their new role as lead CTFs and the wins and challenges of building a community of practice amongst CTFs, ‘Herding Cats’. They were highly commended in the oral presentation category.
  • Former Clinical Teaching Fellows, Dr Jacqueline Roy and Dr Tirion Swart from the North Bristol University of Bristol Teaching Academy were awarded first prize in the Video Pitch category for their work on development of a podcast to support clinical years’ medical student learning on ‘Geri-Pods’, using Podcasts to Broaden Learning on the MDT’s Role in Practice for Medical Students. You can view Jacky and Tirion’s winning pitch on Twitter(X).
Screenshot from Jacky and Tirion’s DMEG video pitch presentation

Well done to Alice, Gabby, Jacky and Tirion!

It is expected that DMEG 2024 will again be hosted online, and would be a great opportunity for anyone from the University of Bristol or further afield to meet with other beginning educators looking out for what they’re interested in, seeing what is out there in medical education and look to meet some like-minded individuals from across the world. It is anticipated that the conference will be held early October next year again, but keep an eye on the links above nearer to the time for information and abstract calls.

For information on joining DMEG and the Academy of Medical Educators visit: www.medicaleducators.org/DMEG and www.medicaleducators.org/Why-join-AoME

* The Developing Medical Educators Group (DMEG) is a subgroup of the Academy of Medical Educators and aims to promote the development of early career educators including doctors, medical students, dentists, physician associates and veterinary educators. It is open to all early career educators who are Student, Associate or Full Members of AoME.

Hot Topics: November is Academic Writing Month

Posted on by sarah.allsop
Sarah Allsop

Did you know that November is Academic Writing Month? In this blog Sarah Allsop invites you to join this international initiative to commit to writing this November and build a writing habit for the future.

Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash

What is Academic Writing Month?

Based on National Novel Writing Month, since 2011, Academic Writing Month (also known as “AcWriMo”) has run as an annual internet-based writing event during which participants challenge themselves to meet a self-set writing goal during the month of November. AcWriMo was set up in 2011 by Charlotte Frost (founder and director of PhD2Published). Several institutions now have annual writing months or ‘WriteFests’ and you can follow the movement on social media using the hashtag ‘#AcWriMo’ or ‘#AcWri’.

PhD2Published highlight 4 main aims of the month:

  • To think about how we write,
  • Form a valuable support network for our writing practice,
  • Build better strategies and habits for the future,
  • And maybe – just maybe – get stuff done!

How do you get involved?

AcWriMo is a personal journey and commitment to writing, so how you get involved is up to you. The concept is that you set yourself a writing goal and then can access advice and support from others also taking part.

There are 6 basic rules:

  1. Decide on your goal – a paper, thesis, project etc.
  2. Declare it – write it down to help to stay accountable
  3. Draft a strategy – have a plan of how much time and when you are going to commit to writing
  4. Discuss your progress – let others know you are doing writing month, again to help your motivation and accountability
  5. Don’t give up – stay focussed to achieve your goal and don’t get side-tracked. If you miss a session you had booked for writing, that’s ok, but don’t let one missed session derail your whole commitment.
  6. Declare your results – share your successes however small – every step is a step further in your writing journey, and importantly announce your final result. Why? The writing community benefits not only from sharing successes but also knowing and learning from what did or didn’t work and being reminded that, we’re all human!

Where can I find out more?

Lots of institutions have writing events during November. Here are just a few to get you started:

BMERG also offers short writing support sessions that run through the year as ‘Shut up and write‘ sessions for all University of Bristol staff and students. For more information on these please contact brms-bmerg@bristol.ac.uk.

Why don’t you make a commitment today to writing throughout November, and add it to the comments below?


Building Community: Attending, presenting and networking at Conferences

Posted on by sarah.allsop

Sarah Allsop

Medical education research is an increasingly active field, with conferences happening throughout the year across the globe. In this blog Bristol medical educators and researchers, Dr Santiago Rodriguez and Dr Sarah Allsop reflect on how to identify when and where these events happen.

Photo by Sincerely Media on Unsplash

Conferences are a staple in the calendar of academics and healthcare professionals, and help us all to share practice and learn from our wider community. Whether you are a student or a medical education researcher, if you are looking to network with experts in their fields across the world, or present your work, conferences can be a fantastic way to do this.

In healthcare education, all of the leading associations have events running throughout the year, two of the largest in Europe are the ASME and AMEE conferences each summer. In addition, there are many other opportunities to present medical education research, but one of the challenges is to know when and where these events are happening.

One resource that may be helpful is this list of major worldwide medical education conferences from Elsevier’s Osmosis blog team. Published on Feb 20, 2023 (and updated on May 4, 2023), this blog lists the details of around 20 high-profile conferences where you could consider submitting your work, as well as including a summary description of the conference and a link to their main website. We think it is a great starting point to find out what’s out there and look forward to sharing the abstract calls for many of these events as they are advertised during late 2023 and into 2024.

www.osmosis.org/blog/2023/02/20/a-comprehensive-list-of-major-medical-education-conferences-in-2023

Another way of finding out about conferences and events is to join one of the MedEd Associations, read more in Sarah Allsop’s blog “Building Community: Networking Opportunities through joining a MedEd association“

What are your favourite #MedEd events and conferences? Add your thoughts to the comments below!

Building Community: Bristol Medical School Qualitative Research Forum

Posted on by sarah.allsop

This blog focuses on the Qualitative Research Forum (QRF) led by Sabi Redwood, Jo Kesten and Heather Brant (L-R) from the Social Sciences and Health Team from Bristol Medical School. This informal group offers friendly support for anyone using qualitative methodology working in health research.

Sabi Redwood
Jo Kesten
Heather Brant
Photo by Firmbee.com on Unsplash

Starting to research in the qualitative space can be a challenge for healthcare educators, as many of us have come from an environment more heavily weighted in qualitative research training. The QRF serves as an opportunity for individuals to discuss specific methodological issues or work-in-progress with peers. The forum aims to be a supportive and friendly environment for individuals to present their work and obtain feedback. It also provides an email network as a resource for members to connect with each other.

The lunchtime meetings are relaxed and usually have a methodological slant. They provide an opportunity to discuss common issues and challenges in the application of qualitative methods and health-related research concepts, to develop collaboration and to foster new ideas. Examples of previous topics for discussion include: online data collection, data sharing, working with large qualitative datasets, process evaluation and rapid qualitative research.

The current conveners of the forum are Sabi Redwood, Jo Kesten and Heather Brant. Please contact us if you would like to talk to the group. If you wish to join the QRF, please contact Sabi Redwood. The email address for current members of the Qualitative Research Forum mailing list is grp-phs-qrf@groups.bristol.ac.uk. Resources for members can be found in the UoB QRF SharePoint site (UoB staff and PGR only).

The QRF meets between 12.30-13.30 once every two months, with the day of the week alternating to account for part time staff/students. More information and dates can be found on the QRF website.

Conference Report: AMEE 2023 Conference 26-30th August 2023, Glasgow UK

Posted on by sarah.allsop

“Inclusive Learning Environments to Transform the Future”

In our third report from this year’s conference season, Dr Carys Gilbert reports on the International Association for Health Professions Education conference held recently in Glasgow, UK.

Natalie Eraifej, Gloriana Suri, Carys Gilbert at AMEE 2023

The AMEE 2023 conference took place this year at the Scottish Events campus in Glasgow. Medical educators from all over the world joined together, with the main theme centred around ‘Inclusive Learning Environments to Transform the Future’. From medical education musicals to motivational speaking symposiums and the effects of war on education in countries such as Ukraine and Myanmar, this was an exciting opportunity to gain a global perspective on medical education.

Dr Natalie Eraifej, former CTF reflected:

‘I really enjoyed attending AMEE this year. It was interesting to learn from about the delivery of medical education within differing cultural and political contexts. Especially inspiring was hearing about the current delivery of medical teaching in war torn countries.’

The University of Bristol was well represented with students, former CTFs and senior members of staff presenting and sharing their work.

Dr Joseph Hartland participated in a symposium discussing their work on what it means to have LGBTQ+ identities in health education. They were joined by people from all over the world, from Canada to Thailand providing an interesting perspective on approaches to LGBTQ+ inclusive healthcare across the world.

Former clinical teaching fellows also presented their work. Dr Natalie Eraifej and Dr Carys Gilbert presented on lessons learnt from a near-peer mentor scheme introduced at the Gloucester Academy between year 5 students and Foundation Year One doctors.

Former Clinical Teaching Fellow Dr Mary Claxton presented a poster on work done with Dr Jessica Reyer, Dr Billy Scott and Dr Ian Hunter on the use of virtual reality in simulation which was completed whilst working as teaching fellows in the Taunton Academy.

Year 4 medical student, Gloriana Suri presented her work completed with Dr Dowan Kwan and Dr Ed Luff and Dr Melina Kellerman which evaluated the use of ethnicity descriptors in an MCQ question bank. This prompted discussion within the room on learned biases and unhelpful stereotyping.

Bristol Medical Student Gloriana Suri presenting her work on ethnicity bias in Multiple Choice Questions (MCQs)

Gloriana Suri, year four medical student reflected on her conference experience:

‘AMEE 2023 was the first conference I presented at, in the EDI category, with our project being about ethnicity use in MCQ banks and how this can impact learning and stereotyping. It was well received in a welcoming and supportive environment followed-up by great questions and discussion. AMEE was a great place to learn about the current research in medical education and reducing healthcare inequalities which, as a medical student, has been hugely eye-opening and something I’d like to continue being involved with. I was inspired by talks, met people from around the world and feel much more confident with presenting skills too. Overall a great opportunity that I will massively value going forwards.’

To showcase the amazing contributions made by those within the medical school, we have created a Sway which contains information about all the work presented by those associated with Bristol Medical School.* Access the sway via this link: BRMS at AMEE 2023. 

A copy of AMEE 2023 presentation and poster abstracts can be found here.

AMEE 2024 will take place in Basel, Switzerland. This was a fantastic opportunity to meet medical educators from all over the world and I would strongly encourage anyone with an interest in medical education to take the opportunity to submit their work and/or attend.

For more information about joining AMEE visit: www.amee.org/AMEE/Membership/

* We have done our best to ensure that all work presented at this event has been included here, but if you think we have missed yours and you would like it added, please get in touch.

Read Ed Luff’s Conference Report on the July 2023 ASME Conference here

Building Community: Developing as an early-career medical educator + the Developing Medical Educators’ Group (DMEG)

Posted on by sarah.allsop

In this blog, one of our BMERG committee members David Hettle, an honorary senior teaching fellow and specialist registrar (SpR) in infectious diseases and medical microbiology, talks about the winding journey to becoming an educator and how the Academy of Medical Educators Early Career Educator group ‘DMEG’ can support you on this journey.

Photo by Dan Meyers on Unsplash

The route to becoming a medical educator, it is fair to say, is not clear, linear, or uniform. Indeed, medical educators may come from medicine, education, other healthcare professions, basic science or other backgrounds.1 This diversity brings with it wide variation in perceptions of what being a medical educator is.

The most recent definition available from the Academy of Medical Educators (AoME) is:

“Medical educators and clinical teachers develop, deliver, and manage teaching programmes and engage in scholarship and research into all aspects of teaching, learning and assessment. Within this definition, the daily work of medical education (MedEd) relates to the teaching of students, doctors, physician associates, vets and dentists about all aspects of patient care, the management of health services, the promotion of health and the prevention of disease.” 2

Clearly, this definition covers a vast spectrum. Individually identifying as a medical educator can range from being central to one individual’s professional identity,3 or may be a secondary identity, potentially at odds with another part of training such as clinical or academic progression. Education may also be merely an activity that professionals undertake rather than being a true part of their owned identity.4-5

The process of ‘becoming a medical educator’ has increasingly become a topic of interest as the profession learns how to support the development of educators. However, much research focusses on educators towards the end of their careers, who often view their involvement and roles as having occurred serendipitously, and have taken much of their career to finally identify as an ‘educator’.3,6

But…why does this matter?

Of course, we are all developing as educators day-by-day, but for those who see themselves at the beginning of their medical educator journey, looking forwards trying to see what the career looks like can be a huge challenge. The fear can be that it is an uncertain, meandering path, with opportunities by chance, rather than planning or good intentions.

Despite this, each year large numbers of junior doctors take time out of training and choose to undertake teaching fellowships,7,8 with numbers increasing all the time. Currently between 70-90 teaching fellows are employed across the NHS trust academies paired with the University of Bristol medical school each year. With an ever-increasing pool of potential career educators completing entry-level posts in MedEd, such as clinical teaching fellowships, there is a need for the world of MedEd to promote, drive and enhance the development of these healthcare professional educators.

Several recent publications suggest routes through which supporting the development of educators should happen including: 5,9-10

  • making teaching visible through events and activities which celebrate the significance of educators’ roles
  • creating transparent and replicable MedEd reward and development structures (such as career pathways – both stand-alone and potentially integrated with clinical training)
  • building communities within MedEd offering role-modelling, a sense of connectedness, and a forum for sharing stories, experiences and frustrations

In 2020, AoME launched the Developing Medical Educators’ Group. This is specifically aimed at those junior and early-career educators shaping their futures in the world of medical education – whether they have held formal posts in MedEd or not.

It recognises that early-career educators are often trying to balance their educator identity with their clinical identity, and that their development can be challenging to integrate in clinical settings where teaching is not always valued as highly as clinical service or research. Communities such as DMEG are therefore crucial to this group of educators, as the “future of medical education” across the UK.

Through AoME, early career educators can apply to be recognised as educators through gaining associate or membership status of the Academy.2 Such accreditation can be hugely important to progression in clinical training and in promoting the value in MedEd as a specialty.

DMEG offers a community for early-career educators, encouraging engagement from anyone interested in MedEd, guided by peers and near-peers in the same boat (or very recently in the same boat!), as those navigating the dual world of medical, dental or veterinary training with educational development. Events are offered both through AoME and directly by DMEG including:

  • DMEG debates: a monthly, live online forum debating hot topics in MedEd (most recently ‘What does the rise of AI mean for MedEd?’).
  • Medical EducaTALKS: regular podcasts exploring aspects of MedEd with senior educators.
  • DMEG conference: A yearly event, this year on 4th October – Communities of Practice in Practise – an online conference discovering the work of early-career educators + hosting workshops and keynotes exploring the world of MedEd.

DMEG seeks to raise the profile of developing medical educators, validate and recognise their critical and important role and ensure that facilities and resources exist for training and development of early-stage educators.

From a personal point of view, having recently been a teaching fellow, DMEG offers me a friendly community to support and continue my development. I can share challenges and new ideas and explore what the MedEd world looks like across the UK and beyond, regardless of where I am currently working, or if/when locally there are no networks or collaboratives available.

I would encourage anyone interested in MedEd, and especially those in teaching fellow posts to have a look at DMEG and see what they can offer you as an educator. By being a group for developing healthcare educators, run by developing healthcare educators, they are always open to suggestions!

Whatever your interest and however long you have been involved in MedEd, DMEG invites you to come and explore the DMEG Conference 2023: Communities of practice in practise, on 4th October 2023.

References

  1. Huwendiek S, Mennin S, Dern P, Ben-David MF, van der Vleuten C, Tonshoff B, Nikendei C. Expertise, needs and challenges of medical educators: Results of an international web survey. Med Teach 2010; 32(11): 912-8.
  2. Academy of Medical Educators. Professional Standards for medical, dental and veterinary educators, 4th edition. Cardiff: Academy of Medical Educators.
  3. Hu WCY, Thistlethwaite JE, Weller J, Gallego G, Monteith J, McColl GJ. ‘It was serendipity’: A qualitative study of academic careers in medical education. Med Educ 2015; 49(11): 1124-36.
  4. Sabel E, Archer J; Early Careers Working Group at the Academy of Medical Educators. “Medical education is the ugly duckling of the medical world” and other challenges to medical educators’ identity construction: A qualitative study. Acad Med 2014; 89(11): 1474-80.
  5. Bartle E, Thistlethwaite J. Becoming a medical educator: motivation, socialisation and navigation. BMC Med Educ 2014; 14: 110.
  6. Browne J, Webb K, Bullock A. Making the leap to medical education: A qualitative study of medical educators’ experiences. Med Educ 2018; 52(2): 216-26.
  7. Wilson S, Denison AR, McKenzie H. A survey of clinical teaching fellowships in UK medical schools. Med Educ 2008; 42(2): 170-5.
  8. Edwards LJ, Hettle D, Stocker C. (2023, July 12-14). A review of Entry-Level Medical Education Roles (ELMERs) in the United Kingdom (conference workshop). Association for the Study of Medical Education Annual Societal Meeting 2023, Birmingham, UK.
  9. Van Lankveld T, Schoonenboom J, Kusurkar RA, Volman M, Beishuizen J, Croiset G. Integrating the teaching role into one’s identity: A qualitative study of beginning undergraduate medical teachers. Adv Health Sci Educ Theory Pract 2017; 22(3): 601-22.
  10. Rees E, Guckian J, Fleming S. Fostering excellence in medical education career pathways. Educ Prim Care 2021; 32(2): 66-9.

Read more about other MedEd associations in our BMERG blog Building Community: Networking Opportunities through joining a MedEd association

An ABCDE to Getting Started with Medical Education Research

Posted on by sarah.allsop
Sarah Allsop

In this blog Sarah Allsop, a Senior Lecturer at Bristol Medical School, shares a short 5-point top tip guide to getting started in medical education research.

Photo by David Iskander on Unsplash

It was great today to be able to extend a warm welcome to the new intake of Clinical Teaching Fellows (CTFs) working across the NHS Trusts linked to the University of Bristol Medical School, and introduce them to the work of BMERG.

CTFs are not only fantastic teachers and innovators, but also undertake some amazing medical education research projects. Bristol’s recent posters and oral presentations at both AoME and ASME is testament to this, with AMEE still to come at the end of August.

For new CTFs, and in fact anyone starting out undertaking research projects in education, this may be a new task and one which can seem quite daunting. Developing skills in educational research is a journey.

Here is a short 5-point ABCDE guide of top tips for getting started in Education Research – a place to start when you are not sure where to start.

A is for Aim: What are you trying to achieve? What problem are you trying to solve? What is the VALUE of your project? All research projects should start with an aim. Having a clear aim will then help to guide your next steps, study design and methods.

B is for Blueprint: How are you going to blueprint / plan your study? What research paradigm will you use? How will you use educational THEORY to aid the design of your project? What methodology aligns with your research question(s)? What do you need to prepare for your ethical review? Planning your project carefully and considering the alignment of the different elements of your study will ultimately lead to a better quality research project.

C is for Collaborate: Can you work collaboratively to build a stronger, more powerful project? Are there already projects in motion that you can join or build on? How can you work and support each other better? What interdisciplinary angles might be possible? We are stronger together. Talk to your peers and seniors about research projects. You may have ideas of your own that you wish to progress and that is fine, but if these align with the ideas of others, or you can build on previous studies, or try innovations across multiple sites or cohorts, this will improve the POWER and transferability of your work.

D is for Disseminate: How would you like to present or publish your work? Do you want to attend an international medical education or discipline specific conference or publish in a peer-reviewed journal? Would you like to be able to showcase your work across the wider local medical school community? One of the key principle aims of all research is to further knowledge and this means that we need to share our findings. Think about your REACH and influence – where, when and how you might like to share your educational research project results.

E is for Endpoint: What is the potential IMPACT of your study? Who might benefit from learning about your results? What are your personal goals? It may sound counter-intuitive to think about the end-point at the start of your journey, but this will help you to plan and develop a timeline. You will always have finite time to work on a particular project and so understanding your goals and being mindful about what is possible will help you to create the deadlines you need to keep your project on track.

Over the coming months BMERG will be sharing more top tips on undertaking educational research, as well as offering events such as journal clubs, writing groups and more. Subscribe to the blog to get all the latest BMERG news direct to your inbox.

Read more about Bristol conference work this summer at AoME 2023 and ASME 2023

Conference Report: ASME Annual Scholarship Meeting 12-14th July 2023, Birmingham UK

Posted on by sarah.allsop

“Developing a Diverse Workforce“

Continuing our conference report theme, Dr Ed Luff reflects on the Association for the Study of Medical Education Conference recently held in Birmingham, UK.

The Eastside Rooms Conference Centre, Birmingham UK

The 12th-14th of July brought the return of the Annual Scholarship Meeting (ASM) of the Association for the Study of Medical Education (ASME), which took place at the Eastside Rooms conference centre in Birmingham. The three-day programme of events saw representation from a wide range of attendees from Bristol Medical School and the Academies, presenting work at a national-level medical education conference. Presenters came from all areas within the school, from professors and lecturers to medical students and clinical teaching fellows (CTFs) to MSc and PhD students, showcasing the wide range of work conducted around medical education within Bristol Medical School.

Once again, this year Bristol was extremely well represented at the conference, with contributions comprising 2 workshops, 15 oral presentations and 29 poster presentations, which exceeded the high bar set at last year’s conference. Huge congratulations to all those who were involved in presenting, authoring, and contributing to the work that was presented, it really highlights the excellent and high-quality work that is being conducted both locally and regionally. Work was presented by academics from within the medical school, those based at academies around the region, including both North and South Bristol, Bath, Gloucester & Cheltenham, and Swindon, as well as current undergraduate medical students and doctors completing their MSc in Teaching and Learning for Health Professionals (TLHP) and PhD.

The range of topics and areas of the curriculum covered by presenters from Bristol ranged from paediatrics to palliative care, professionalism to research paradigms, interprofessional learning and simulations on Boeing 747’s, transgender and non-binary healthcare, and gamification of sexual health. Many presentations highlighted collaboration both within the medical school, across different academies and hospital sites, as well as with outside organisations and other institutions and healthcare professionals.

This year also saw the inclusion of a new presentation format at the conference, the ‘What’s Your Point?’ sessions, where presenters were invited to start a conversation and present on a topic of interest or debate. We had a thought-provoking oral presentation on the future of medical educators, and poster presentations on classical cases/ typical presentations, promoting interprofessional education, a professionalism reporting system and engagement with teaching innovations.

ASME as a conference provides a wonderfully welcoming and inclusive environment to inspire, engage and network. It is friendly and accessible, with sessions covering the full spectrum of medical education, from admissions and widening access, through undergraduate, foundation years, and postgraduate training. There really is something for everyone and the wide range of parallel ‘pre-conference’ and ‘intra-conference’ sessions, symposia and workshops provide an opportunity for attendees to build skills and develop in areas of personal interest.

Dr Alice Middleton, CTF co-lead, based at Gloucester Academy, reflected on her experiences from the conference:

“I presented about using virtual patients to teach clinical reasoning, and was encouraged by queries and enthusiasm about the project from members of the Technology Enhanced Learning ‘TEL’ special interest group of ASME – I have joined them! I also attended the TASME prize presentation session and talked to one of the presenters after the session, we have since been emailing about potentially collaborating on a project about teaching clinical reasoning which is exciting; it was a great opportunity to link up and learn from people doing similar-but-different things in other medical schools in the UK.”

Dr Sam Chumbley, a CTF based at South Bristol Academy commented:

“This was my first ever conference, and who knew they could be so fun?! I met so many like-minded people, and everyone commented on how approachable everyone is it ASME. You can be asking a presenter a question after their talk, and then sharing a meal with them later that day. The talks were fascinating, with a heavy focus on EDI topics this year, which has empowered me to speak up when seeing colleagues or patients being discriminated. Other talks focused on topics like innovation in education, which is always exciting to hear about, and has made me less terrified of the advent of AI in education. Ultimately, ASME has set the bar very high for future conferences I will attend!”

To showcase the amazing contributions made by those within the medical school, we have created a Sway which contains information about all the work presented by those associated with Bristol Medical School.* You can view summaries of the two workshops, copies of the abstracts for the oral and poster presentations and electronic versions of all the posters too. Access the sway via this link: BRMS at ASME 2023. A collated Bristol abstracts booklet can be viewed here:

ASME-BRMS-Abstract-Booklet-2023-1

The full ASME 2023 conference brochure can be downloaded here: ASME 2023 brochure. The conference brochure contains detailed information on keynote speakers, pre and intra-conference sessions including symposia and pop-up events, parallel sessions and oral presentations. The abstracts book can be downloaded here: ASME 2023 Abstracts book. The abstracts book contains details of all abstracts included at the ASM 2023. Each individual abstract has its own page including information on the authors and presenters. This includes submissions for e-Posters, oral presentations, relevant awards, and What’s Your Point? sessions. For information about joining ASME visit: www.asme.org.uk/membership/.  

Next year’s ASM will be held in Warwick, from the 10th-12th of July 2024, with the theme ‘Maximising Potential’. We hope that next year will bring further success for Bristol Medical School at ASME. We are also looking forward to the AMEE conference, which this year is being held in Glasgow from the 26th to the 30th of August. The best of luck to everyone who is presenting.

* We have done our best to ensure that all work presented at this event has been included here, but if you think we have missed yours and you would like it added, please get in touch.

Read Sarah Allsop’s Conference report on the June 2023 AOME-INHWE Conference here