It was a pleasure to host Professor Alex Harding of Exeter University at our ERDP seminar in May to hear his talk based on his PhD on “The Role of Learning Networks in Undergraduate Clinical Medicine”.

It was both an entertaining but also academically challenging story of how students learn in clinical environments.  His work is based on actor-network theory which gives weight to both human and material factors and is, in particular, focusing on semiotic symbols, ie. messages we are sending out.  Illustrative examples would be how a student might feel on approaching a busy health care professional on a ward, or a scary looking life-support machine in a side room, and how these are clearly barriers to students learning in those environments.  His ethnographic picture of how students spend large amounts of time attempting to initiate a consultation with a patient, and then very little time participating in the consultation and the linked teaching, was entertaining but challenging.  As with all good research, we left having been academically informed, challenged and stimulated to explore and ponder his questions further.

Hugh Alberti, Sub Dean of Primary and Community Care, School of Medical Education