Dr Mark Lillicrap and Dr Jeremy Webb lead the Integrated Foundation of Medical Education course at the University of Cambridge. The course allows medical professionals working in the community or hospital setting to develop their knowledge and understanding of the theoretical basis of teaching and learning and allow participants to put teaching into the context of their role. Dr Webb also leads a Masters level course at the University of Cambridge with another colleague, Professor Clare Morris.
Participants have valued what they’ve learned and suggested that other senior clinicians teaching new doctors should take this course to provide better insight and confidence when teaching the clinicians of the future.
For the past three years Dr Lillicrap and Dr Webb have facilitated staff development programmes with the Universities of Jaffna and Peradeniya in Sri Lanka. They also ran workshops for the South Asia medical Conference on Medical Education in Colombo in 2019. The courses have been well received and they were invited back by the faculty for three consecutive years.
In September 2020 the courses were recognised by the Association for Medical Education in Europe(AMEE): https://www.aspire-to-excellence.org/News/1528/2020+Certificate+of+Merit+Winners/
The evaluation of the IFME and Masters level programmes is consistently good and the factors that most frequently commented on are:
- Enthusiasm of the faculty delivering the course
- The interactive nature and the workshop formats
- The modelling of learning models in the way in which teaching is delivered
- The fact that the course allows participants to go away, try out and then reflect on new ideas for their teaching
- The creation of a community of learners so that by the mid-point of the course the participants are learning as much from each other as from the faculty
Positive feedback from previous courses:
When past participants were asked: ‘What were the three most important things that you have taken away from this course?’ some of the responses were:
- “It’s not what you teach that matters, it’s what the learners learn”
- “the style of questioning and its impact to learners”
- “Everything is about the relation between the content and the process.”
- “The importance of interaction and participation from students in the learning process – zones of proximal development means they learn from each other as well as from you”
- “Giving feedback that is actually meaningful – gaining consent, creating a safe environment”
If you are interested in finding out more about this course or how we can assist your organisation in providing medical education, please contact us.