I joined two Dutch colleagues to run a pre-conference workshop called “The artist inside us all: creative tools for reflection on personal growth towards professionalism”. We used singing, drawing, poetry and upmarket Play-do to reflect on our own careers/lives as a way of introducing participants to exercises they could use with their students. Groups of three had packs of postcards and were asked to select one that spoke to their experience, ideally one where they could talk about something which had gone wrong. I modelled this by choosing one of three cards I had never seen before, made some self-revelatory comments but also highlighted areas which I had deliberately not discussed: this demonstrated the importance and possibility of safety for those taking part as well as conveying the message that teachers must be open if they are expecting learners to be open.

My other observations from the conference were:

• The Red Hot Chilli Pipers are brilliant. They performed in the Opening Ceremony.
• Only one workshop – and no papers – on teaching about diversity. Nothing on teaching about death, dying and bereavement.
• At AMEE Fringe, Menno de Bree reprised his TED talk. It’s called “On why your work does not make you happy” – available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cA1mu9kDnjc
• Lisa Lipkin reminded us that nothing is more sustainable than a good story. What moves you moves your audience. Stories are the glue to keep numbers, facts and details in our brains. Good oral storytellers use visual language.
• Mona Siddiqui on diversity – “Not just to have a seat at the table but to feel comfortable in the chair”.
• Roger Kneebone used the painting by Barbara Hepworth, Concourse. It depicts an operating theatre where, although the focus of everyone present is on the patient, the patient is invisible. A good starting point for reflecting on the process of surgery. https://www.rcseng.ac.uk/support-our-work/heritage/successful-appeals/dame-barbara-hepworth-appeal (Scroll to end for image.)
• He also showed a short clip of a surgeon with his hand beside a patient’s liver saying “If you put your finger in here you can feel the er”. It was inexpressible, reduced simply to “er”. As one who tries to express what empathy and professionalism are, this inarticulate phrase was reassuring.
• In a professional identity session a student referred to a medical student and a “normal student”. There was not a flicker of a smile on a single face.
• A poster showed that the conscientiousness index works in Singapore – good news for our Durham colleagues, another associated punctuality with exam success. A third extolled the virtues of a “Simple Happiness Class”, claiming that simple happiness will change the world.
• A number of studies dispute the orthodoxy that empathy declines over the medical course.
• In a presentation on empathy a speaker showed a cartoon with a doctor saying “I know how you feel”…as an EXAMPLE of empathy!
• Granite is an unforgiving surface for a ceilidh.
• I am still sufficiently immature to smile when I see a poster from the University of Chihuahua.

Dr Bryan Vernon, School of Medical Education

Wednesday 15^th-Friday 17^th July 2015, BT Murrayfield Stadium, Edinburgh

The conference opened on Wednesday afternoon with a thought-provoking Lord Cohen Lecture from Prof Steve Peters of @chimpmanagement discussing his work on optimising the performance of the human mind. I then chaired an interesting parallel session on interprofessional education and simulation.

The anatomy themed parallel session on Thursday included talks on 3D printing of anatomical models by Nick Tollemache @ntollemache from Brighton and Sussex Medical School, followed by talks on current issues surrounding anatomy knowledge and its place within the medical curriculum at the Medical Schools of both Exeter University and St George’s, University of London. I presented two posters on our work concerning Artatomy @artatomy and social media in anatomy learning and teaching in the chaired poster session on Thursday evening. Undergraduate MBBS project student Joseph Hutchinson @joe_hutch presented a poster of our work outlining development and evaluation of our 2D drawing and 3D modelling online interactive video tutorials.

I presented a talk on our work investigating reciprocal transitions in understanding between 3D anatomical structures and 2D clinical images during the parallel session on Friday morning that also included a similarly themed talk involving innovative artistic learning methods by Nichola Robertson @nich_rob from the Art and Anatomy @artandanatomy group at Edinburgh University Medical School.

The conference closed with a venue-appropriate plenary “Scoring with education – reflective practice in international sports medicine” by Dr James Robson, Chief Medical Officer and Head of Anti-Doping, Scottish Rugby Union.

You can see my #asmeasm2015 tweets from @dr_keenan on Twitter and my conference story is here: storify.com/dr_keenan/asme-asm-2015.

Dr Iain Keenan, School of Medical Education

Dr Patrick Rosenkranz presented a paper at VICTOP 2015.  The paper was called ‘Teaching psychological research methods through a pragmatic and programmatic approach’, co-authors, Dr Amy Fielden and Dr Effy Tzemou. Here is the abstract:

Research methods teaching in psychology is pivotal in allowing students to make the transition from student as learner to independent practitioner. We took an action research approach to re-design, implement and evaluate a course guiding students, through a programmatic and pragmatic research cycle. These revisions allow students to experience diverse psychological methods by working as collaborators on three sequential studies (qualitative psychometric and survey design). Evaluation of the first delivery ( 2014) highlighted that students developed a broad range of transferable skills, but experienced uncertainty associated with the research process and anxiety attributed to the less definitive guidance provided by staff ( Rosenkranz, Fielden and Tzemou, 2014). Based on this we implemented changes aimed at further developing independence while managing uncertainty by using structured discussion and research groups. In this presentation we will discuss the overall rationale of redesigning the course and present data from the second delivery (2015) of the action research evaluation.

Supporting information:

Rosenkranz P, Fielden A, Tzemou E. (2014). Teaching psychological research methods through a pragmatic and programmatic approach. Psychology Teaching Review, 20(2), 28-35.