Todays blog is my take on teaching as a medical professional. This will be relevant to MRCOG exam part 3 on teaching station.

Educator is a broader umbrella under which includes a teacher, coach, mentor, guide, facilitator, etc. As a healthcare professional on workplace apart from being a clinician we are expected to be an educator. It’s kind of embedded in our role, also mentioned in GMC guidance for a doctor.

Looking from different perspectives in this dimension, important is to understand the underlying theories and principles of medical education. Obviously, going there is not the idea of this blog but yes directing to useful resources can possibly be one.

In MRCOG part 3 exam teaching stations can come in form for demonstrating a psychomotor skill like, tying a knot; a mix of cognitive and psychomotor skills like shoulder dystocia drill or PPH management; feedback giving; etc. Idea is to assess your knowledge of the subject and your understanding of principles of teaching.

Well let me introduce to some new names which you can refer to help in outlining structure for this domain:-

a. Peyton’s 4 Steps (Walker & Peyton, 1998): This helps in teaching of psychomotor skills.

b. Calgary Cambridge Model (Kurtz et al, 2003): Feedback

c. SET-GO method of feedback (Silverman, Draper and Kurtz, 1997)

There is a big list of techniques and guidance that can be applied in above context but have touched upon a few which I found convenient and relevant.

Here I would put greater emphasis on practice for teaching stations and then getting critical feedback on same.

References:

Walker & Peyton (1998) Walker M, Peyton J.  Teaching in theatre. Teaching and learning in medical practice. Manticore Europe Limited; Rickmansworth: 1998. pp. 171–180.

Kurtz SM, Silverman JD, Benson J and Draper J (2003) Marrying Content and Process in Clinical Method Teaching: Enhancing the Calgary-Cambridge Guides. Academic Medicine 78(8):802-809

Silverman J, Draper J., Kurtz S. (1997) The Calgary-Cambridge approach to communication skills teaching OO: the SET-Go method of descriptive feedback Education for General Practice 8. 16-23

Link: https://www.facebook.com/notes/402316180759424/