At Cardiff University School of Medicine, the education team sought to increase practice-based learning opportunities for undergraduate medical students in years 3-5 by introducing Supervised Learning Events (SLEs), with support from Clinical Assessors in practice and designated Educational Supervisors. This structure and network of support reflects standard practice in Postgraduate Medical Training in the UK, thus suitably preparing Cardiff undergraduate students for when they embark on their postgraduate years.
Setting the scene
As trainee doctors, years spent on placement in clinical practice are vital, informative years for developing experience, skills and knowledge to take forward into their future career and chosen specialism. SLEs play a vital role in learning and development as students are supervised carrying out procedures by an experienced medical professional (Clinical Assessor). Within a SLE, they are provided with valuable feedback to support their ongoing development.
Prior to 2018, Cardiff University School of Medicine used paper-based books for feedback to undergraduates throughout their placement, this led to many clear challenges which impacted their learning and development.
In early 2018, Cardiff School of Medicine embarked on an innovative project to overcome these challenges and dramatically improve the support and feedback their students gained in practice. The aim of this project was to move from paper-based feedback to electronic feedback specifically designed to support medical and healthcare students in clinical environments. After a rigorous tender process, Cardiff University School of Medicine chose Myprogress, an electronic practice-based assessment and feedback platform developed by Learning Technology company, MyKnowledgeMap.
Since implementing Myprogress, Cardiff School of Medicine has been able to extensively gather valuable digital data on the performance and progress of their students on placement. Students have been able to gain feedback during SLEs in a timely way enabling them to make a difference to their training and development. Anecdotally, the fact that feedback and performance data has been gathered remotely for Cardiff University students, has made a huge difference to the support they have been able to have throughout challenging periods.
Myprogress has made a particular impact during winter storms and difficult travelling conditions across Wales where students are based across a range of remote placement areas, as well as throughout the current extremely challenging COVID-19 epidemic.
Using My Progress has enabled us to look at the quality of the reflections remotely throughout the pandemic and helped us to either reward students who are doing well or support students who require further help” adds Rhian Goodfellow.
Amongst the many benefits, Myprogress has brought to medical students and staff at Cardiff University, one principal outcome has been in enabling Cardiff University to use Myprogress data to conduct valuable research to improve the way they provide feedback, assess and support their students in practice.
Building on positive outcomes and expanding the use of Myprogress at Cardiff School of Medicine...Going forward, Cardiff School of Medicine plan to extend the use of MyProgress during the forthcoming Academic Year as a conduit to support students Education Plans which will inform specific teaching and learning needs. They also aim to use My progress to capture feedback on performance in formative clinical examinations. This allows students to receive instantaneous feedback which will allow them to reflect on and improve performance immediately. This compares with a 2-4-week delay if it were to be captured within our previous paper format.
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