Group run by academics from University of Bristol Medical School with an interest in Medical Education Research. Opinions expressed are those of the authors and not of Bristol Medical School or the University.
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:
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.
* 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.
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:
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:
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.
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.
“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.
* 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.
BMERG is really pleased and proud to share that Bristol’s Alice Middleton, Carys Gilbert, Philippa Dodd & Isabel Rimmer, from our Gloucester Academy at Gloucestershire Hospitals NHS Trust have been awarded the Technology Enhanced Learning Special Interest Group Annual Scholarship Meeting Oral Presentation Prize for their presentation,
“Low-Tech, High-Yield; the utility of virtual patients using simple presentation software“
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:
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.
If you are a health sciences education researcher and are looking for training in research methods, check out the new programme from Bristol Medical School Short Courses.
Short courses are designed for researchers and healthcare practitioners and cover a range of topics on research methodology, design and analysis in health sciences. From statistics to qualitative methods, data visualisations, or writing up journal papers, there is something to support your research journey.
Bookings will be available from midday on 17th October.
Find out more on the short course website or explore the chart of courses available month-by-month below.
It’s conference season and Sarah Allsop reflects on the AOME-INHWE conference held recently at Cardiff University.
Centre for Student Life, University of Cardiff
The joint conference between the Academy of Medical Educators (AOME) and the International Network for Health Workforce Education (INHWE) was held last week in the beautiful city of Cardiff and hosted by Cardiff University in the Centre for Student Life.
Over the three days, the presentations and workshops spanned a huge diversity of topics, but centred around the values and culture that we need to support excellent patient care through working together. One of the frustrations of conferences is that due to the parallel nature of the scheduling, you can’t always get to everything that you really want to see. The flip side of this, is that you might end up attending something you didn’t expect, which turns out to be really interesting and useful. I love the fact that you always make new connections and learn something new at conferences.
A few of the talks really stood out for me during the conference.
The Welsh Minister for Health and Social Services, Eluned Morgan MS, highlighted the importance of including educators in workforce planning to tackle the challenges of healthcare in Wales and across the UK.
Professor Josie Fraser, Deputy Vice Chancellor for the Open University, talked about the value and outcomes of using enquiry-based learning, in particular team-based learning in interprofessional learning groups. She highlighted the value in students debating together and understanding each other’s viewpoints better, and learning how to work together, building confidence and respect.
Professor Jacky Hayden CBE spoke about the importance of planning for the future, and critical to this is investing time to develop the medical education leaders of tomorrow. Importantly she talked about creating the space to develop these skills. Healthcare education leaders need to drive the quality of standards not only in higher education institutions, but also in the healthcare providers within the NHS. Education leaders have the power to influence culture, and the importance of compassion and trust are hugely important in developing others.
Bristol Medical School was also represented at the conference with both staff and students presenting work including:
‘The lost decades’ a workshop led by BMERGs Dr Sarah Allsop with Professor Colin Macdougall from Warwick Medical School on how to problem solve some of the challenges ahead for medical educators
‘Enhancing Anatomy Teaching Through Peer-Run, Flipped Classroom Sessions’ poster presented by Bristol medical students Mr Adam Mistry and Ms Shraddha Sriraman
‘Inspiring the next generation to innovate in healthcare through a cross-faculty student innovation programme’ presented by Bristol medical student Miss Somto Okoli with students from Cardiff Medical School
Colleagues from our Bristol NHS Academies also presented including:
‘Developing a tailored teaching program to support international medical graduates’ presented by Dr Laura Kyle, Dr Eleanor Pilsworth, Dr Bethan Arnold, Dr Malvika Subramaniam, and Dr Amy Whitworth from Musgrove Park Hospital, Taunton
‘Celebrating Trainee Success Drives Learning and Boosts Morale’ – Unanimously positive experience of a departmental teaching session driven by trainees’ case presentations of personal excellence presented by Miss Robyn Brown and Mr Anthony Gould from Great Western Hospital, Swindon
The whole conference was extraordinarily uplifting and a reminder of the huge enthusiasm and energy of the medical education community.
I would recommend any aspiring and current educators to consider attending future AOME and INHWE events and looking at the professional standards and support available from these associations.
Acknowledgement: Sarah Allsop (blog author) would like to acknowledge the funding grant awarded by the Bristol Medical School to support her presentation at this conference in June 2023.
