Category: External events

Building Community: Spotlight on the Incubator for Clinical Education Research

Posted on by sarah.allsop

This weeks BMERG blog is a spotlight on the Incubator for Clinical Educator Research (ClinEdR). Hosted by the University of Newcastle, the Incubator is an NIHR initiative launched in 2020 to develop ClinEdR as an academic field.

Image (c) UX Indonesia on Unsplash

What is the Incubator?

The mission and aim of the ClinEdR Incubator is to support and promote careers in clinical education research through building a multi-professional community of practice. It extends across all health professions and aims to bring people together to develop their ideas, build collaborations and provide a network of developing experience in the field.

What is Clinical Education Research?

This is one of the most fundamental questions and tends to have a myriad of different definitions and terms including clinical, medical, and healthcare professionals education research to name just a few. Often the word ‘clinical’ can drive the idea that this sort of research must have a direct impact in clinical practice and thus can seem to exclude certain areas of research in education.

The team at the Incubator have tried to broaden this idea, embracing all sorts of different research that can and does have an impact on societal health needs by “enhancing the education, training and development of health and social care practitioners, and the organisations within which they work and learn“. They highlight a number of different areas in which individuals and teams may be undertaking clinical education research such as:

  • Pedagogical research
  • Planning and design of educational programmes
  • Regulation processes
  • Organisation context of learning, such as learning environments and workforce inclusivity
  • Learner experience and careers

They also consider that this whilst this type of research may have a direct clinical impact for patients it may achieve impact in other ways such as benefiting clinicians in their training, influencing health and education systems and through challenging and developing standards.

How can the Incubator help those who want to engage in Clinical Education Research?

The incubator is a fantastic place to start regardless of where you are in your ClinEdR journey. It offers a variety of resource and links via it’s website such as:

So why not take a look at their resources, find out who works in ClinEdR in your area and sign up to be part of the growing Incubator network!

You can learn more about the Incubator at clinicaleducationresearch.org/ on Twitter/X at @ClinEdResearch or email the team at clinical.education.incubator@newcastle.ac.uk

Event News: TICC GW4: The Inaugural CTF Conference

Posted on by sarah.allsop
Dr Ed Luff
Dr Sam Chumbley

In this blog Dr Sam Chumbley and Dr Ed Luff invite you to The Inaugural CTF Conference: TICC GW4, hosted by the University of Bristol in collaboration with BMERG.

TICC GW4 provides an opportunity to see and present the valued work of Clinical Teaching Fellows (CTFs) from across the GW4 Alliance Medical Schools of Bristol, Cardiff, and Exeter. Building on the successes of last year’s Inaugural CTF Conference at the University of Bristol, which brought together CTFs from Bristol Medical School’s regional academies, we have expanded this year’s meeting, to invite presenters from the GW4 Alliance Medical Schools, Bristol, Cardiff, and Exeter.

One of the highlights of this year’s expanded interinstitutional conference will be a keynote from Dr Jo Hartland, Senior Lecturer and Deputy Education Director at Bristol Medical School. They will be presenting an account of their work in the field of Equality, Diversity and Inclusion.

There will also be presentation options for CTFs from the GW4 Alliance, in a variety of formats, including Research, Innovation and Opinion Pieces. Authors can choose to submit abstracts for consideration as a Showcase presentation (20 minutes), Oral presentation (10 minutes), Poster presentation (3 minutes) or for display as an e-Poster, which requires no presentation on the day. Opinion Pieces can also be considered for an Open Forum (30-minute) platform of discussion. There will also be a variety of workshops run on the day, to help develop delegates’ research and clinical academic skills.

All those involved in the teaching or support of medical students, be that clinical, academic, or administrative, are welcome to attend the conference. However, presentations will only be open to Clinical Teaching Fellows from the GW4 Alliance Medical Schools.

Registration is free and lunch will be provided. TICC GW4 will be held in Bristol on the 5th of April 2024. Further details will be sent following registration.

To register for the conference or to submit your abstract for consideration for presentation at the conference, please follow this link: TICC GW4 Registration

Registration will close nearer to the conference date.

The deadline for submission of abstracts is 12:00 on Friday 8th March 2024.

For further information visit https://bmerg.blogs.bristol.ac.uk/ticc-gw4/ or for queries please contact med-leadctf@bristol.ac.uk

Building Community: Enhancing the International Student Experience

Posted on by sarah.allsop

In this blog, Dr Liang-Fong Wong shares some key insights into how we foster an inclusive environment for international students within our university academic systems and culture.

As 2023 drew to a close, I attended a ‘Show, Tell and Talk’ workshop run by the Bristol Institute of Learning and Teaching (BILT) on International Student Experience.

This is an area of work that is close to my heart – being an international student at Bristol myself many moons ago, my international roles, and serendipitously, it was being organised by my netball teammate Catriona Johnson, from the Centre for Academic Language and Development (CALD).

L-R: Assoc Prof Liang-Fong Wong, Dr Fiona Holmes, and Dr Claire Hudson at BILT International Student Experience workshop, 2023.

Catriona and I had previously shared many courtside and car conversations about her project work on academic language and literacy, but have never interacted within our work capacities. I was delighted to turn up on the day to find fellow BMERG members Fiona Holmes and Claire Hudson there as well!

International staff and students are an important community at our institution: they are invaluable to the diversity of our campuses, adding richness and vibrancy to our learning environments and making us all much better global citizens for now and the future. There is so much that we can learn from each other across different cultures.

During the session, we were given an overview of the numerous BILT-funded projects across the university that explore themes such as increasing inclusivity in the international classroom, decolonising curricula and developing sense and belonging.

Fiona Hartley (BILT/CALD) presented the ‘3 shocks’ that international students can experience:

  • Pedagogical (knowing what to expect academically)
  • Language (how to express oneself academically)
  • Cultural (feeling a sense of belonging and community in Bristol)

What was really interesting was the observation that some of these shocks may not be unique to international students, and indeed may be familiar to others in the wider student population, particularly first-year students.

We discussed in small groups how different schools use effective interventions and ways to enhance teaching and learning experience within and outside of the classroom. There were so many great examples, such as:

  • optional induction modules
  • allocating groups and facilitating group work sensitively
  • academic integrity training
  • peer-assisted support sessions
  • promoting opportunities through the Global Lounge, Bristol Voices and Bristol Connects initiatives

Through sharing experiences across the whole university and across disciplines, it gave us ideas on how we can implement some of these strategies in our own practices.

All in all, I really enjoyed the session; it was such an enriching discussion and I got to know many people outside of the medical school.

I am very much looking forward to going to more of these workshops in 2024 and if you, like me, would like to participate here is the events link to the BILT website: Events | Bristol Institute For Learning and Teaching | University of Bristol

More about this blog author:

Dr Liang-Fong Wong is one of the University of Bristol’s Associate Pro-Vice Chancellors for Internationalisation as well as working as an Associate Professor in regenerative medicine. She also works with the undergraduate students as the Year 4 co-lead for the medical programme and is one of the inaugural members of the BMERG committee.

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?


Hot Topics: BMERG launches a new page for Abstract Calls!

Posted on by sarah.allsop
Sarah Allsop

Following on from our recent BMERG blog on Building Community: Attending, presenting and networking at Conferences we are launching a new page in the BMERG site to highlight abstract calls as they are released from Medical Education Associations. This list will build throughout the year and aims to support researchers to find out more easily about the timings of annual conferences and events.

Take a look by clicking on the “Abstract Calls!” in the top menu or clicking on the link below:

Access our Abstract Calls List here

If you know of either a medical education and research event or an event with a broader scope that may be of interest to the BMERG audience, let us know in 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

Abstract Call: Postgraduate Researcher Exchange Sessions at ASME’s RME Conference 16 Nov 2023

Posted on by sarah.allsop

Thursday 16th November 2023, 9.00am-5pm UK time

IN PERSON EVENT
Friends House, London
Postgraduate Researcher Exchange Sessions: Call for abstracts
Deadline for submission Friday 29th September 2023 at 5pm

ASME’s Education Research Committee (ERC) are very keen to support and encourage our excellent early career HPE research community to share their ongoing work. With this in mind, we are inviting those who are undertaking postgraduate research studies, at any stage, (e.g. PhD, Professional Doctorate, MD, MRes) to submit an abstract to present their work in progress.  

The abstract that you submit should focus on the theme of the conference “Alignment matters: from conception to communication”, demonstrating how you have integrated and aligned, or plan to integrate and align your choices of theory, research philosophy, and if relevant to stage, methodology and methods (or proposed methodology and methods).

Your abstract should be no more than 300 words long and finish with a question or topic that you would like to discuss with the audience (who will consist of fellow HPE researchers with a range of experiences).

Once all abstracts have been received we will then shortlist 6 presenters for our Postgraduate Researcher Exchange Sessions, which will form part of RME (those not selected will be given the option to present a poster at RME). The emphasis of these sessions is on discussion and ideas exchange; therefore, you will have 7 minutes for your presentation and 13 minutes will be given over to discussion.

Please send your abstract(s) submission to ERC-Events@asme.org.uk by Friday 29th September 2023 at 5pm. You will receive notification of whether you have been selected for presentation or poster by Wednesday 11th October, 2023.

Submissions are final on receipt, no amendments will be permitted after submission.

For full event details visit: https://www.asme.org.uk/events/rme2023/ or email events@asme.org.uk