Staff Development – Page 2 – Bristol Medical Education Research Group

Hot Topics: The Journey Travelled

Posted on December 5, 2023January 26, 2024 by sarah.allsop

In this wonderfully insightful blog, Dr Sarah McLaughlin reflects upon a recent journal article rejection and suggests looking back at the journey travelled to put academic setbacks into perspective.

How many of us have shared this experience – the article you poured your heart and soul into, and submitted to a journal is returned and has not been accepted?

You are thanked for your submission and it is their pleasure to inform you that the referee’s responses are contained in the email. The referees are unable to accept your article for publication in its current form, but if you are willing to substantially revise according to their requirements and resubmit it, they will reconsider your article.

At this point your heart drops and you feel like you are never going to get any further in academia. Does this sound familiar? It happened to me this week. I know I am not alone in this experience.

At first you may hear that this is a rejection of your work. Maybe you hear – you are not good enough, you are not as good as the others or maybe you should give up.

This time I have approached this set back differently and want to share my thoughts with you. How about looking not at where you want to be: published and accomplished – but you look back. You look back at how far you have come to get to this point. You focus not on what you have yet to achieve, but you focus on the journey travelled.

Let’s take our first look back.

To get the point of submitting an article to a journal, you have spent hours writing and completing an article ready for submission.

To get to the point where you write your first sentence, you have conducted some research.

Maybe this was for your Masters or doctoral qualification where you worked your way from your proposal, poured over the literature, worked through your ethics application, to recruiting participants, gathering your data and spending hours writing up your research in order to submit your dissertation or thesis. That is one big achievement in itself.

But let’s look back a little further.

How did you get to the point where you commenced your current studies? There was a time when you were applying to university to commence your undergraduate degree, wondering if you would be accepted. Would you pass your entry requirements? Would you even make it to day one of your undergraduate degree?

Maybe look back even further.

Did you walk into the exam hall for your GCSEs or school exams wondering if you had done enough revision, worked hard enough and would you be able to answer all the questions within the tight time given to sit your exam. Maybe you did not pass your exams first time and had to resit them.

Maybe you didn’t enter university through the traditional A level route and returned to education as a mature student through an Access course or an equivalent. Can you even remember as far back as your school exams? How many years have passed, how many times have you submitted an assignment or sat an exam since then? How many other times have you received disappointing feedback or felt like giving up… but you didn’t?

So, now let’s come back to our current feelings.

What was your journey to the point where you uploaded your article to the journal and crossed your fingers? How was the journey you travelled to get there? How long did it take you? How many setbacks did you overcome? How many times did you feel like giving up? These reflections may help put this current feeling of rejection and your article into perspective.

Switching from looking back to moving forward

Firstly, take a break.

Come back to the feedback with fresh eyes and see it for what it is – some advice on how to make your article more aligned with the journal’s aims or make your arguments clearer, or analysis more aligned with theory. It is an opportunity to improve.

Read the feedback carefully to understand why it was not accepted. What you can do to improve your article, and importantly, increase your chances of your revision being accepted and published?

Don’t take it personally.

Rejection is common, and it demonstrates that these journals have high standards to maintain, which is a good thing. It does not reflect your worth as an academic. Most importantly, don’t give up.

Keep going.

You are one of many scholars who have had an article sent back to amend. This is a normal and common part of the journey towards article publication. Receiving what feels like a rejection may feel like a blow, but it is part of your journey. Looking back at how far you’ve come may help you see that this is just one more step along the way. Don’t give up. Keep going. It’s all about the journey travelled.

You got this.

More about this blog author

Sarah is a Lecturer and the MSc. Co-Lead (Teaching and Learning for Health Professionals) and Foundations in Medical Education Programme Lead. She is part of the Centre for Higher Education Transformations research centre (CHET) and tag them (@chet_for)

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

Posted on December 1, 2023November 30, 2023 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 November 17, 2023November 17, 2023 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 November 3, 2023November 15, 2023 by 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.

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:

Decide on your goal – a paper, thesis, project etc.
Declare it – write it down to help to stay accountable
Draft a strategy – have a plan of how much time and when you are going to commit to writing
Discuss your progress – let others know you are doing writing month, again to help your motivation and accountability
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.
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?

Publishing in Medical Education: Writing for Publication – Getting Started

Posted on October 27, 2023January 4, 2024 by sarah.allsop

Building on our previous BMERG Publishing in Medical Education Blogs, in this post Dr Sally Dowling talks about the exciting, but often challenging process of getting started with writing for publication, and the things that are important to do before you start writing.

Sally is a Lecturer at Bristol Medical School, working both for the Teaching and Learning for Health Professionals programme and the MSc Reproduction and Development (Co-Director). She also runs a series of writing for publication workshops for the Faculty of Health Sciences at the University of Bristol.

Many of us have pieces of work that we’d like to publish. This might be an idea from your area of expertise, a completed audit or evaluation, an innovation from your medical education practice, the outcomes of a study/research project/dissertation – or maybe an opinion piece, commentary or book review. Whatever this might be, there are several things that are important to do before you start writing. Many of these are in the form of questions you might need to ask yourself, or things that you might need to find out. It’s a good idea to do this type of preparation before you actually start to write as this will really increase the chance of your paper being sent for review.

So, how do you get started?

Ask yourself:

What am I trying to communicate – what is my aim?
What writing style/who is my audience?
Why is my message important/relevant?
What type of article do I want to write?

When you are clear about what you want to do, there is still more research needed before you start writing.

Should you write with others – or are you planning to write alone?

It depends! Have you undertaken the work with others (including as part of a doctoral or masters project)? Understanding publication ethics is important, as is thinking about authorship (see www.icmje.org/). Things to consider include what contribution each author has made to the manuscript, remembering that authors are accountable for the rigour, accuracy and integrity of the content – and don’t forget to agree the author order from the beginning! Usually these issues can be talked through straightforwardly (after all, you have probably been working together for a while) but they can sometimes be tricky to resolve.

Where do you want to publish your work?

Now you can start to think about where you would like to submit, and how that influences what and how you write it. Sarah Allsop covered some of this in her BMERG blog Publishing in Medical Education: Matching. Explore journal websites and look at author guidelines – these will very specifically tell you about word length, abstract format, general formatting, including use of sub-headings, referencing style (and, sometimes, number permitted), the layout for tables/graphs, digital artwork etc (and how many you can include). It’s always much easier to write your article as the journal want to see it, rather than retrospectively make it fit to the guidelines.

Have you fully informed yourself about your target journal?

It’s also a good idea to read some papers published by your chosen journal, as well as looking at who is on the editorial board (do you know their work? Are they from a range of countries?). Is the potential journal open to a range of methodologies. Does it have an Impact Factor (a mark of quality, international standing)? Is this important to you? (or your department!). Can you find out what the time lag is between acceptance and publication – and is this important to you? Does the journal require an Article Processing Charge in order to publish your work, or is this optional? Yes, this is a lot of questions, but checking out all of these things before you start is really worthwhile and highly recommended.

Taking the time to work through this process at the start of your writing journey may seem onerous at first, but in the long term it not only helps your writing process, but it might just improve your chances of publishing where you want in the long term.

If you’d like to have an opportunity to explore these issues more, consider coming to one of the Medical Education Research Writing for Publication and Conference workshop sessions (contact Sally Dowling or see full programme here).

External News: Announcement of Vacancy Editor-in-Chief of The Clinical Teacher

Posted on September 20, 2023October 24, 2023 by sarah.allsop

Sharing opportunities with our BMERG network – editorial opportunity from ASME, read original advert at https://asmepublications.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/1743498x/eic-applications

Are you passionate about providing easy access to the latest research, practice and thinking in clinical education across the health professions?
Are you looking for an opportunity to lead a well-established global journal on its next stage of development?

ASME – The Association for the Study of Medical Education, invites applications for the position of Editor-in-Chief for their bi-monthly, peer-reviewed journal, The Clinical Teacher.

The Editor will commence in post in November 2023, and will have support from the current Editor during the transition phase.

The Clinical Teacher and Medical Education are the official journals of ASME. The Clinical Teacher is a key resource for researchers, educators, and practitioners dedicated to advancing the latest research, practice and thinking in interdisciplinary healthcare education. There are sections on specific teaching approaches, reports and evaluation of innovative learning activities, brief overviews of the latest research, reports of innovative thinking and advances in clinical teaching from around the world, and expert commentary and discussion on challenging and controversial issues in clinical education.

The Editor-in-Chief will oversee the selection of all editorial content for publication in the journal and work closely with a team of associate editors, supported by an international and interprofessional Editorial Advisory Board, along with the ASME Director of Publications and Associate Editorial Director (Wiley) to maximize the journal’s brand, visibility, scientific standing and quality. The Editorial Office is managed by an Editorial Assistant provided by the Publisher.

The Clinical Teacher is looking for an outstanding individual with an internationally-recognized track record of scientific publications along with senior editorial experience and a strong understanding of the business of publishing a journal. Above all, the successful candidate must be passionate about clinical education and demonstrate a clear vision for its future growth and development.

The ideal candidate will possess the following skills and attributes:

Broad knowledge of the international discipline of health professions education
The ability to support authors with their publishing objectives
Sound judgment and willingness to make strong editorial decisions
Ability to address sensitive matters diplomatically and considerately
Awareness of trends within knowledge dissemination and openness to new ideas
Excellent written and verbal communication skills

A fixed annual honorarium is provided for this part-time position, in addition to a travel budget.

Application procedure
Applications should include:

a curriculum vitae
a cover letter outlining the reason for their interest in the role, editorial experience and suitability
A vision statement- outlining the strategic vision for the future of The Clinical Teacher under their leadership

Please send your application to: Jenny Ogg, ASME Operations Manager jenny@asme.org.uk. All enquiries will be treated in confidence. Applications to arrive no later than 13^th October 2023.

Applications will be shortlisted after the closing date, with interviews to be held on 1^st, 6^th, 7^th or 8^th November via Teams.

More information on the role can be found here. Informal enquiries to be sent to Kim Walker Director of Publications (director-publications@asme.org.uk)

Building Community: Bristol Medical School Qualitative Research Forum

Posted on September 15, 2023August 21, 2023 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.

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.

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

Posted on August 18, 2023September 15, 2023 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.

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 4^th 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 4^th October 2023.

References

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.
Academy of Medical Educators. Professional Standards for medical, dental and veterinary educators, 4^th edition. Cardiff: Academy of Medical Educators.
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.
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.
Bartle E, Thistlethwaite J. Becoming a medical educator: motivation, socialisation and navigation. BMC Med Educ 2014; 14: 110.
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.
Wilson S, Denison AR, McKenzie H. A survey of clinical teaching fellowships in UK medical schools. Med Educ 2008; 42(2): 170-5.
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.
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.
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

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

Posted on July 24, 2023July 24, 2023 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 12^th-14^th 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 10^th-12^th 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 26^th to the 30^th 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

Hot Topics: Researcher skills – 5 key learning points about Reflexive Thematic Analysis

Posted on June 23, 2023June 27, 2023 by sarah.allsop

This blog is written for BMERG by one of our committee members Dr Grace Pearson. Grace is Bristol Medical School graduate and a current Clinical Research Fellow in Population Health Sciences. Her research interests are in undergraduate medical education, specifically curriculum development and evaluation and geriatrics education.

Grace shares her experience and tips after attending a workshop hosted by BMERG and the School of Policy Studies on ‘Reflexive Thematic Analysis’ from the expert Qualitative researcher, Professor Virginia Braun from the University of Auckland.

Image of a galaxy Photo by Bryan Goff on Unsplash

Image of buckets Photo by Sixteen Miles Out on Unsplash

At medical school, future doctors are taught to detect patterns in history and examination to reach a diagnosis. Moving into medical research, this scientific pattern-recognition continues in quantitative data analysis and interpretation. As a result, approaching mixed methods studies or pure qualitative research can be daunting for those of us in medical and other scientific fields – it certainly was for me.

There are several core aspects of qualitative data analysis that I’ve never truly got to grips with, despite attending multiple training courses… Therefore, getting the chance to learn directly from a world-leading expert was an opportunity not to be missed.

I went into this workshop wanting to learn how to analyse or ‘code’ my data and develop my themes. I came away with a much wider appreciation of the importance of exploring context, embracing subjectivity, finding latent meaning, and conceptualising what Prof Braun called ‘galaxy’ themes rather than ‘buckets’. Let me explain a bit more.

When we first look at qualitative data during analysis, certain things can jump out at us as topics. We may think these may start to look like our themes, but if we are not careful, they can end up looking like our original questions and, because everything we connect to a particular topic ends up together ‘in a bucket’ so to speak, may have lots of conflicting ideas within them.

Conversely, true themes are more like a galaxy with a clear core, a ‘central organizing concept’ holding together all the ideas which although may be different, just like stars and planets are in a galaxy, they remain inherently linked.

Here are my 5 key learning points from Professor Braun’s fantastic reflexive thematic analysis (RTA) workshop, which I hope might help others to approach their own qualitative data analysis in a reassuringly robust way:

Scientifically Descriptive vs Artfully Interpretive analysis: Descriptive describes and summarises the data in an ‘experiential’ or ‘realist’ manner. Interpretive tells a story, locating the data within a wider context and presents an argument in a ‘critical’ or ‘constructionist’ way. Approaches to thematic analysis (TA), range from ‘scientifically descriptive’ deductive methods such as coding reliability, to ‘artfully interpretive’ inductive methods such as reflexive TA.

Small q vs Big Q: Descriptive analysis suits ‘Small q’ research questions that seek to explore or describe peoples’ experiences, understandings, or perceptions – their ‘individual reality’. Interpretive analysis suits ‘Big Q’ research questions that seek to explore the ‘wider context’, for instance influencing factors, representations, and constructions.

Context and Subjectivity: Analysis occurs in the intersecting space between the researcher(s), the data, and the research question. Subjectivity is present in all 3, as all are influenced by sociocultural, disciplinary, and scholarly context – as a result, analysis is situated in context, which must be clearly communicated.

Coding: codes are ‘units of analytic interest’, the smallest unit of analysis capturing a single analytic idea or facet. These can be semantic (explicit) or latent (implicit) – descriptive analysis generally uses more semantic codes, whilst interpretive analysis uses both. Codes are not ontologically ‘real’, they exist only for the researcher(s) to foster engagement with the data – they need to capture the meaning of the data along with the researchers’ interpretation, orientated towards answering the research question.

Themes: a theme is a construction that captures shared or repeated meaning in the data around a ‘central organising concept’. Themes are conceptual, therefore semantic-level data may seem disparate, but it is unified by latent meaning representing diverse manifestations of the core concept (like a galaxy). Themes sit in the analytic narrative – they must tell a story of how the data is meaningful and answers the research question.

Some examples of recommended resources for getting started using reflexive thematic analysis

https://www.thematicanalysis.net/
Braun, V, & Clarke, V. (2013). Successful qualitative research: A practical guide for beginners. SAGE.
Braun, V, & Clarke, V. (2022). Thematic analysis: A practical guide. SAGE.
Braun, V, & Clarke, V. (2021). Can I use TA? Should I use TA? Should I not use TA? Comparing reflexive thematic analysis and other pattern-based qualitative analytic approaches. Counselling and Psychotherapy Research, 21(1), 37-47. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1002/capr.12360
Braun, V, & Clarke, V. (2021). One size fits all? What counts as quality practice in (reflexive) thematic analysis? Qualitative Research in Psychology, 18(3), 328-352. https://doi.org/10.1080/14780887.2020.1769238

More about Professor Braun https://profiles.auckland.ac.nz/v-braun

Virginia “Ginny” Braun is a New Zealand psychology academic specialising critical psychology of health and gender. She is internationally recognised for expertise in qualitative methodologies, and particularly the now widely utilised method of (reflexive) thematic analysis – developed in collaboration with Victoria Clarke (UWE).