August 7, 2024, by mszrm4

MedEd Careers Day 2024

In this last blog, we say THANKS to all those who attended and shared their stories with us at the UoN MedEd Careers Day 2024!

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The Careers Day was first hosted by the MedEd course in 2019 and then moved online for a couple of years, so we were excited to meet F2F again this year. The aim of the day is to introduce different MedEd career options to our current students, hear from Alumni and also invite people who are thinking of joining our course.

In the Business School building on Jubilee Campus, delegates, staff and speakers met up on Wednesday 26th June 2024 and heard from 4 recent Alumni of the MedEd course and also the Dean of Nottingham Medical School. After a coffee break, we gathered again to do some “speed dating”, where speakers and delegates spoke in small groups around 6 tables and every 10 minutes moved to the next table. This was a great way of everyone getting to talk in smaller groups, and the staff and speakers loved learning about all the delegates’ stories and giving personalised advice.

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Our Speakers:

Stephen Ojo started the day off, after an introduction from Nicola Cooper. Stephen graduated with a master’s in medical education from Nottingham and currently works in the ED at QMC Nottingham. He enjoys working at DREEAM - teaching colleagues from the local hospitals.

He is interested in teaching medical students and others using augmented and virtual reality simulations. He has been gratified in seeing the students he has taught coming back to work in the department as junior doctors. Stephen said that he felt that his MedEd qualification gave wisdom and the chance to meet other like-minded professionals. 

See him on TV sometimes – on “24 hours in A&E” on Channel 4!! (3rd from the right).

 

Jessica Markham has now been a paramedic for 10 years. But wanted to improve the knowledge in her profession so she decided to study on the MedEd course at Nottingham. She completed her Masters last year and is currently working at Nottingham Trent University as Senior Lecturer in Paramedic Practice and Emergency Care, teaching students on the paramedic undergraduate and master programmes.

She is keen on evidence-based practice – the subject of her dissertation! – and teaching clinical reasoning to allied health professionals. Jess is proud of empowering her students to “Mold their profession”, empower their clinical educators in the field and eventually to empower their patients to take care of their own health.


Nathan Betteridge – Nathan says he saw medical educators and said, “I want your job”. He works as an Anaesthetist at Manchester Royal Infirmary and travelled to Nottingham to complete his Masters in Medical Education – looking at Medical Education Leadership for his dissertation. Nathan feels that having MedEd qualification is good “on paper” for job applications, but also it allowed him to explore his research interests and meet like-minded colleagues. He enjoyed hearing other people’s stories from different background and different organisations. 

Going back to study helped him to get back to the principles and ideas of MedEd that are important and to question what he has been doing for some time – E.g. being observed and getting feedback on facilitating simulation sessions.



Nathan now has an educational role as Clinical Tutor Lead for 1st and 2nd year undergraduate medical students at Manchester University. They use “Teams Based Learning” at the university and the photo above is from one of the weekly patient cases that they use to stimulate learning e.g. clinical scenario on the stage. Often, they will invite in charities or patients to present their experiences of the topic.


Kat Telford says, “I am just a Junior doctor” but reassures people that you can still get involved in MedEd. She wanted to be medical educator even when in med school, so worked supporting peers and as an anatomy demonstrator.

Taking a 1 year sabbatical to work in the Students’ Union as Vice president education and welfare, she got to learn how a university works and represented her fellow students. She studied in London then moved to the Midlands for F1 and F2, before applying for an “F3” post as a Clinical Teaching Fellow at the university of Nottingham.

Kat is currently a Medication Education Fellow at the university and does some clinical work but notes that you need a CCT to apply for more senior roles – such as a Clinical Academic role at the university. So, soon she will be joining GP training and hoping to continue her education work alongside clinical work.

Kat feels that studying on the Masters opened doors to research and publication opportunities and presenting at conferences. It is a good way to networking with people with similar interests.


Claire Stewart is a GP and Dean of the largest medical school – with 1000 staff and 3500 students!  Claire says she got into medical education to proves that “reflection is not the only way” and believes that MedEd is the Key to excellence in clinical care and fulfilling careers. Her specialist area is assessment and feedback, and she was Head of Assessments at Nottingham before becoming Dean. She has had a large number of education roles – in the Deaneries, clinically and at other universities before coming to Nottingham.

Claire feels that gaining a MedEd qualification has given her validation in her educational roles, and helped suppress the “Imposter Syndrome”, but also she enjoyed studying the evidence base behind teaching skills and feels it gave her a “toolbox of skills” to take with her wherever she went.

Claire’s lessons shared:

• Be yourself – you are enough!
• Be kind – always!
• It’s OK not to be OK
• Be humble
• When you are wrong, say you are wrong
• Be inquisitive
• No question is too stupid
• If you apply when you are ready – you are applying too late!
• Nothing is forever or irreversible
• Care – really care!
• Enjoy medicine!

 

There is also a wealth of MedEd Careers information at the University of Nottingham website: https://www.nottingham.ac.uk/careers/students/graduatejobs/career-paths/medical-education/index.aspx 

 

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APPLY NOW TO JOIN US ON THE MASTERS (or PG Dip or PG Cert)

“Home students” can apply before 25th August to start in September 2024.

You can find all the details online of how to apply here : https://www.nottingham.ac.uk/pgstudy/course/taught/medical-education-mmedsci 

FAQs about applying for our course, see this PDF: FAQs-PGT-MedEd-24-25

 

 

 

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