Student professionalism competition
Achieving good medical practice: summer break competition 2018
Reflection empowers doctors to learn, develop and improve their practice throughout their careers. How does this translate to you as a medical student?
‘At its core, reflection is thinking about what you’ve done, what you did well and what you could do better next time. To do this, you need to think about what effect your actions have on yourself and on others, including patients and colleagues, across all aspects of your education and training.’
But what does this mean for medical students?
- Could reflecting on what happens during your course make you a better doctor in clinical practice?
- How does reflection help your personal health and wellbeing?
- Should the way you are taught reflection as students change as you progress into practice?
Design a session to explore these issues
We would like you to create a teaching session that will engage your peers in a conversation about reflection and being a reflective practitioner, focusing on one of three themes;
- Coursework, assessments and academic life
- Interactions with patients, peers and professionals on placement
- Health and wellbeing
The session should help other students understand what the joint GMC and MSC student professionalism guidance, Achieving good medical practice, says on these matters, and give them three take home points.
What are we looking for?
- A short training session (we suggest 15 – 20 minutes).
- You should explore one of the given themes, linking the content of your session back to why reflection is important for medical students.
- Your session can be any format that you think would work: a workshop, quiz, roleplay, debate, or anything interesting and engaging!
- Entries are welcomed from individuals or groups of up to six students (unfortunately this competition is not open to students graduating in 2018).
To get you thinking, you can see the sessions from last year’s winner and runners up below.
What’s in it for you?
- The winning entry will be awarded a £300 high street voucher.
- Two runner up entries will be awarded a £100 high street voucher.
- The winning session will be shared with all UK medical schools as a teaching resource.
- The winner will also have the opportunity to blog about their experience in GMC student news. You can find last year’s winner’s blog.
How to enter?
- Email us your details – Names, medical schools and years of study – and provide a maximum of 250 words, saying why, from the guidance about reflection in Achieving good medical practice and your own personal experiences, reflection is important for medical students.
- Create a plan of your session and attach it to the email. This should be detailed enough for us to understand how the session would run, what would be covered and what the three take home messages are. Include any slides, handouts, media or other resources you would use in the session. You have until Sunday 23 September to submit your form and session plan to Student@gmc-uk.org
- We will assess entries on their accuracy in interpreting the guidance, learning objectives, whether they are engaging, innovative, in the ‘spirit of the guidance’ and finally, if they meet the brief.
- The winner and runners up will be announced in GMC student news in November.
More information about reflection
These are some possible resources about reflection to get you started – we hope they are helpful.
Examples of reflection. GMC
Improving feedback and reflection to improve learning. A practical guide for trainees and trainers (PDF). Academy of Medical Royal Colleges
Reflective writing as an agent for change (with top ten tips for writing reflections). BMJ
Previous winners
2017 competition: Honesty and integrity
- Charles Pope, firth year medical student from the University of Cardiff (overall winner):
- Sam Easdon and Luke Reader, sixth year medical students from Imperial College London (runners up):
- Ciaran Grafton-Clarke and Kai Wen Chen, fifth year medical students from the University of Liverpool (runners up):
- Joshua Burns and Louis Darby, fifth year medical students from King’s College London (shortlisted):)
- Caitlin Stewart, first year medical student from the University of Aberdeen (shortlisted):)
- Alice Rogers, fourth year medical student from the University of Cambridge (shortlisted):)
2016 competition
- Bethany Lloyd, fifth medical student from the University of Aberdeen (overall winner):)
- Benjamin Quek, Carys Durie and Shafqat Batchelor, fourth year medical students from the University of Cardiff (runners up):)
- Ciaran Grafton Clarke, fourth year medical student from the University of Liverpool (runner up):)
- Adam Lee Jones, sixth year medical student from the University of Cardiff (shortlisted):)
- Nathaniel Quail and Ailsa McRae, fourth and fifth year medical students from the University of Glasgow (shortlisted):)
- Saad Khan and Lydia Hiddema, third year medical students from the University of Birmingham (shortlisted):)
Contact us
For further details on any of these resources, please email quality@gmc-uk.org.
