Medical Students – Why are we involved in training medical students?
The surgery works in collaboration with the University of East Anglia to help train the next generation of doctors.
How do they learn to be doctors?
From the beginning of their studies, students will be coming to general practices or to hospitals to learn by meeting patients. Every week the students are given “learning aims” to work on at the university and the days they spend with patients link in with the topic being studied. As well as learning about the theory, they will be learning from patients about how being ill affects daily life and life in the community.
A typical teaching day.
As a training practice all of our doctors are involved at some point during the teaching year, and they will invite patients in to talk to either a pair of students or the whole group.
They may also have arranged for pairs of students to take part in different activities which can include research, or visiting someone at home. Occasionally and with your prior agreement students may sit in with your GP during your normal appointment.
All members of the team may be involved in student learning activities as all have valuable skills to teach them. This may be at our main surgery, at our branch surgery or out in the community.
What can you offer the students?
Every week the students cover a different medical topic, and when they come to the practice the activities they do here help them to understand what it means in reality to have the problem they are studying. We know you have a story to tell and we need your help to train the students to understand what it really means to be unwell.
What would you have to do?
We ask some patients to talk to two or three medical students in one of our consulting rooms. They will ask you your medical history and questions about your medical condition, occasionally they might ask if they can take your blood pressure or listen to your chest. This should take between 30 and 45 minutes.
We also ask some patients if they would be happy to sit in with the whole group of students, this session is supervised by one of the tutors in the upstairs conference room. This should take between 45 minutes and 1 hour.
What to patients think about becoming involved?
Most patients who have taken part in student teaching in the past have enjoyed it. They find that they learn things themselves as well as helping the students learn.
If you would like to take part in the student teaching programme please contact your GP or Dawn Brighton, the Teaching co-ordinator, [email protected].