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Interviews are all about preparation -- thinking about what questions you may be asked and making sure you have some positive points as a response.
But what about when you are asked to expose your weaknesses?
When posed the question “Please can you tell me your weaknesses or flaws” think about this in a positive manner.
Explain your weaknesses as strengths to maximise the return on the interview you are having.
You shouldnt mislead or lie to interviewers but if you strategically prepare your responses as explained in this video it will assist in getting the maximum from an interview situation.
Writers at Medical Educator have watched the news coverage with interest of this introduction of a 48 hour working week.* The asterisk is an important one. For example, junior doctors will still be working more than 48 hours in one week (it’s an averaged figure over several weeks), and it doesn’t do much to inspire non medical readers!
Listening to BBC reports of the introduction will lead to “serious accusations” being made by junior doctors that they were essentially instructed to falsify monitoring data. True? It remains an indisputable fact that hospital trusts continue to practice inappropriate monitoring practices which fall short of the accepted published standards. A quick poll of junior doctors shows that 0 of our sample of 10 understood the monitoring basics (how hospitals should practice the process of monitoring), however 9 out of 10 knew it was a contractual obligation! We suspect that is because of the keenness of monitoring bodies to point this out to us. One junior doctor recounts his own experiences of monitoring to us:
The trust essentially conducted the monitoring without due warning. The results were not disseminated in the required way. The management was reluctant to allow the process of monitoring to be transparent. Junior Doctors who should not have been monitored as working the full shift rota actively colluded to distort the monitoring figures. Annual leave and holidays were not properly accounted for. Legal action via the BMA was threatened.
Another told us the following
Only until an employment tribunal was threatened by the junior doctor representatives did the trust acknowledge that the rota was not compliant. It was not an argument over break times, rest, sleep patterns or any other caveats. It was simply that the number of hours was outside of the banding which we were being paid (and not by a small amount). The trust went to the extent of claiming typographical errors on the published rota.
On balance the hospitals have a very difficult job in managing rotas: no one doubts that the overall interest remains patient care despite all the potential wrangling. That said, the new cohort of junior doctors starting work in the UK and the European Union will not just be struggling with acute pulmonary oedema in the early hours, they will be grappling with complicated employment and payment issues that has dogged the training of juniors over the past decade.
We call for a no nonsense guide to the hours that doctors can work in the EU, and that all rotas distributed to juniors should include average hours worked per week, and a clear breakdown of how the rota has been applied to the British banding system. We’d be interested to hear the views of students and qualified doctors here about how their new jobs shape up over the coming weeks, and months. We’re particularly interested to hear how interns from the US, Canada and Australia cope with working patterns, and doctors from India and Pakistan on how they contrast their own working conditions with those described here.
Please do not name organisations or individuals, for legal reasons we will not publish such comments.
Links to National organisations representing junior doctors and students below.
Thanks for talking to us Joel. We came across you via the social networking site Twitter. As a UK based doctor, its always nice to chat to students from across the pond. Tell us a bit about yourself and your medical training.
Joel Adler, Studying at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine, USA, Founded in 1848 (which is significantly before www.medicaleducator.co.uk!
First of all, thanks for asking me to do this. Born and raised in Wisconsin, I earned my undergraduate degree in Spanish from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. I’m presently a third-year medical student at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health. I spent a year between second and third year on a research fellowship from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. I studied novel therapeutics for neuroendocrine tumors and clinical outcomes of surgical management of endocrine disease. After I graduate next May, I plan to pursue residency training in general surgery with fellowship training in either surgical oncology or transplant surgery.
As you know we’re a British website, run by British doctors but we feel our information is relevant to medical students from across the world. Do you know of any specific differences between medical training in the US and the UK?
As I understand it, the main difference is in the way we split our training. In the US, we do a separate degree (often at a different institution) before enrolling in medical school. The undergraduate degree can be of any course of study, as long as specific pre-medical requirements (biology, chemistry, physics, etc.) are fulfilled. As I mentioned earlier, mine was Spanish. Medical school is four years in length, with optional extensions for other degrees (MPH, PhD) or experiences. But as far as the overall training of medical school, I’m not aware of any large differences.
Medical students in England have very limited professional responsibility and remain heavily supervised at all times (for example, they do not see patients unless they have been first reviewed by an attending doctor. Is this the same in the US?
We’re supervised all the way through. Most medical schools follow a traditional format: the first two years are classroom instruction with sporadic clinical experience, and the final two years are clinically based with less formal classroom instruction. In the final two years, most supervision is performed by resident physicians. Responsibility increases with time, but we are certainly supervised at all times. There’s usually no requirement for signoff before seeing patients, but we are typically observed in our interactions and signed off at that time.
Do you get many opportunities to do practical procedures? If so, what sort of things do medical students in general have the opportunity to do?
Procedures are certainly possible, and are dependent upon the clinical clerkship. Most students have a fair deal of experience in delivering babies, suturing, starting IVs, intubating, and drawing blood. Other more advanced procedures typically come in the fourth year once we have chosen our specialties and spend time working in those specific areas.
In the UK we focus heavily on observed clinical history taking and examination for many of the assessments. Is that something you identify with? And are you familiar with the term OSCE?
Absolutely. The emphasis on this varies between schools, but the majority of school will do some OSCE testing in the first two years in order to prepare for the third year. During the third year, grading is a mix of clinical performance, a written exam, and OSCE-style testing. The emphasis is typically much more heavy on observed clinical day-to-day work, and the OSCE serves as a final exam to ensure that you are competent in areas that weren’t observed. For example, I’m currently rotating on an inpatient medicine service that is very heavy on GI and hepatic disease. During the OSCE, I suspect I’ll have some stations involving either pulmonary or cardiac disease. They seem to be good ways to assess skills, but they tend to be rather artificial situations.
Many UK based medical students wont have heard of the USMLE. What are your views on it as a standard across the US? (in the UK each medical school sets its own exam standards).
As far as a standardized exam, I feel it’s fine. Nobody looks forward to taking them, but many schools provide adequate support and guidance to prepare for the test. The scores are typically used by residency programs when considering applicants, and all parts of the USMLE must be passed before a full medical license is granted. It’s nice to have standard exams to make sure that we’re all covering similar material.
The USMLE comes in three “steps”. Step 1 focuses on pre-clinical knowledge (basic science, pathophysiology, basic treatment and diagnosis) and is usually taken between the second and third years of school. Step 2 is actually two parts: clinical skills (a day-long OSCE-style examination) and clinical knowledge (a day-long written examination on clinical decision making). That is usually taken during the fourth year. And finally, before a medical license is granted, Step 3 is taken during early residency. It focuses on advanced clinical skills and decision-making.
Joel, we’d like to say a big thanks for taking part in our interview. Its great to hear things first hand from an American student. Finally is there anything that you like to use as a US student that we might not be so familiar with over here in the UK?
I’ll share some of the things I use often for studying and caring for patients. I use my iPhone constantly, usually for Epocrates and the Johns Hopkins Antibiotic Guide. I also like MedCalc. On the computer, I love using Evernote to keep track of things to study – I can just open up the program on my phone and studying during downtime. I use Papers (Mac only) to keep my PDFs of articles organized.
Thanks again for your time Joel, and good luck in the forthcoming OSCEs, exams and that USMLE!
Berci, Hungarian medical student and Web 2.0 Entrepreneur
Berci Meskó is a Hungarian medical student, and a leading innovator when it comes to the web 2.0 and using new healthcare technologies. His medical blog is one of the most popular on the internet from a medical student. Here he is interviewed by one of the Medical Educator team.
Hi Berci, you’re a busy man, so thanks for doing the interview. We made your acquaintance socially on Twitter, and over the following few months have been quite amazed about the impact of your blogs Scienceroll and Webicinia. It’s fair to say they have received cult status in the healthcare community, and on Twitter.
Can you tell us a bit about yourself, your journey through medical training and how you got interested in the web?
James, thank you for the great opportunity! I’m a sixth year medical student in Hungary which means I will graduate this August. Then I plan to start PhD training in personalized genetics. So I should say health 2.0 is only my hobby, but it’s actually much more than that. From morning to the afternoon, I do a clinical rotation as this is what our 6th year is about. In the afternoon, I do research in a local prestigious lab and I live the rest of my life at night!
I started Scienceroll.com in November, 2006. It will reach the one million page-view milestone soon and has won 3 blog awards. Then I launched a Hungarian medical blog, and in October 2008 I founded Webicina.com, the first medical web guidance system. I believe e-patients and doctors need guidance online as we’re not really ready for the medicine 2.0 world. I try to help doctors by developing the easiest medical information tracking tool for them for free (PeRSSonalized Medicine), and I try to help patients with also free web 2.0 guidance packages focusing on medical conditions.The first one will focus on diabetes and will be published in a week.
Scienceroll, a leading medical blog founded by Berci
Tell us a bit about Scienceroll, what it is and how you got it started.
I started Scienceroll because I wanted to share and comment interesting medical and genetics-related news. Later it became a channel for my thoughts and projects. I cover two major topics there: personalized genetics and ‘medicine’ or ‘health 2.0‘. I was lucky to get numerous opportunities through my blog: to give a slide-show at Yale, School of Medicine, the Medicine Meets Virtual Reality conference, the Medicine 2.0 Congress at the WHO.
You’re still a medical student. Does any of this get in the way of your studies, or medical exams?
Berci has a popular Twitter page
Never! Even if my blog means a lot to me, my medical studies stand in the first position. Anyway, when I have to prepare for exams, it’s good to have a blog as I can have a rest while writing the posts after hours of hard work with my books. And I can ask medical questions in the Twitter community, health ‘tweople’ always help me. So you can find people around the world, medical students, who have the same problems and who can help you in your studies.
We understand most of your readers are in the USA, predominantly California, which is leading web development. Have you received any recognition from your own University about what you do?
I don’t think any of my professors would know what I’m working on. And that’s primarily a very good thing. I don’t want my online job/life to be an advantage or disadvantage in exams.
But after months of hard work and preparation, I could launch the first credit course focusing on medicine 2.0 at my university and I’m about to relaunch the course in English next week. So that is a great opportunity and I hope we can persuade professors to include it in the official medical curriculum so it could be the first medical university to cover such topics officially.
Would you recommend other medical students to get involved with blogs, and the web 2.0 as it stands?
Of course, and I tried to persuade students attending my course to start blogging as it can help them build an online reputation and can lead to unbelievable opportunities. I’m not saying all students should have a blog, but those who would like to build a successful online presence, a blog can be a perfect channel.
If students want to attend virtual courses, Second Life is ready for them. If they want to work together online, they can use Google Docs or a public wiki. If they need information, Wikipedia is a great first resource (but should never be the one you end your research with). There are many ways students can use the tools and services of web 2.0.
We were pleased to be in contact with you, I guess you must have made some other useful acquaintances through the web. I’ve enjoyed reading your interviews with other doctors. Can you tell us about a memorable interview?
I think the best interview you can do is with the doctor you consider your mentor. So I loved talking with Ves Dimov at Clinical Cases and Images because he was the one who got me into this health 2.0 field. He’s been very helpful and nice since even before I wrote my first post. And it felt really good to talk with Jay Parkinson, Steve Murphy or Dietrich Stephan.
Thanks Berci, good to talk to you and its an impressive, and inspiring story. We look forward to hearing great things about you in the future.
Medical Educator would like to thank Berci for the interview. Read more form Berci at Scienceroll and Webicinia.
Medical Educator authors marched in 2007 to support the rights of junior doctors and to protest about what became known as the MTAS fiasco. “A bungled reform a day keeps the Junior doctors away” was the verdict form the Telegraph newspaper. But what was behind the story of MMC (the Modernisation of Medical Careers), who were the individuals involved in supporting the rights of those doctors, and what is the state of play now, nearly 2 years on from doctors marching through the streets of London.
Richard Marks, Consultant anaesthetist and representative of RemedyUK
A representative of RemedyUK, the key organisation behind the junior doctor movement speaks to Medical Educator. Dr Marks is a Consultant Anaesthetist, former training programme director, and spokesperson fro Remedy UK. Here he speaks to James Bateman, from Medical Educator.
Thanks for speaking to us Richard. You got involved with RemedyUK after you were disappointed with how the Government had handled the MTAS situation?
Yes, RemedyUK started in November 2006 and I joined it in January 2007. Of the key 6 people who started it, I was the last one in…..
When I came in I had spent the whole of 2006 trying to get our local training rotations to work under MMC [modernising medical careers], but I simply couldn’t make it work. The recruitment system looked like it was just going to be a big mess. I was feeling despondent, but then I went to a meeting of RemedyUK. They were planning a protest march, and I thought, if anyone’s going to sort it, then these guys will.
I think the march had a very large impact on doctors at the time. The vast majority of junior doctors in the UK were either aware of the march in 2007 about MTAS (Medical Training Application Service), or on it. Do you think the campaign has reached medical students?
Not really. We have medical students in the hospital that I work at. I don’t think that most of them are aware of what the problems are.
We tended to agree from our own experiences of contacts with students. We then asked Dr Marks to tell us a little about the current legal campaign. He highlighted the background to the MTAS enquiry following the march in 2007. He went on to describe the potential problems with dealing with a regulatory body (the GMC) and the existing organisation the BMA (British Medical Association) who had been perceived by many junior doctors to be less vocal in the defence of its members. He went on to say:
MTAS was technically just a computer system but it was the whole application process around the recruitment which was the disaster. The BMA had called for it to be stopped, but didn’t really do much more than that.
There was then some legal proceedings between thee two organisations which we will not cover in any more detail here. Dr Marks also commented:
The bad thing was that for the first time run-through training was being offered, which meant that the stakes for getting or not getting a job were higher than ever before.
Dr Marks makes a point here that resonates with colleagues who are junior doctors: the failure to get onto a training programme was almost seen as a “one shot” approach: failure meant that you were then destined to pursue a different speciality.
The process by which you would get or not get a job seemed to be less fair, and there were a lot of issues around the recruitment process. We thought it should never have been allowed to happen.
This is echoed by the grass roots support of RemedyUK by junior doctors. Want to see for yourself? Ask a doctor that you work or train with! Dr Marks then highlighted a series of reviews that cast a damning verdict on the MTAS process. Read more about them here, or listen to the podcast. The summary of the verdicts was as follows…
All the independent reviews said in various ways that was a complete disaster.
The role of the regulatory body for doctors in the UK, the GMC, was then discussed.
What we (RemedyUK) then thought was, why hasn’t the GMC taken a view on this? On two grounds…
Dr Marks went on to explain the rather poorly-defined concepts of professional misconduct and deficient professional performance.
At the end of last year we wrote to the GMC to say we thought they should hold an enquiry into this. There were 1600 signatures to a letter; but the GMC wrote back and declined to hold an enquiry.
RemedyUK, acting on behalf of British Junior Doctors
As a result of this, and following legal advice taken by Remedy, the issue of the GMC’s role in the regulation of the management issues and application process is going to be scrutinised. The process is complicated but summarised on the Remedy Website as the following:
The pain, insensitivity and incompetence that MTAS created has not gone away. Neither have the people responsible for it, who continue to cling to their positions of power and responsibility. Last year we wrote on behalf of 1600 signators to the Fitness to Practice Directorate of the GMC, calling for an enquiry into whether those responsible were guilty of misconduct and/or deficient professional performance. The GMC refused our request, since it was apparently the wrong kind of misconduct.
We intend to challenge this decision. We intend to take the GMC to court, and seek judicial review to determine whether or not they have acted unlawfully in making this decision. Our lawyers believe there is strong case law and precedent which supports our view; we have already issued a Letter Before Action and are awaiting a reply.
Good lawyers are not cheap, and we aim to raise £20,000 to cover our legal costs. We are hoping to raise this from ordinary doctors – not only those directly affected by MTAS but from others who were appalled at the level of managerial incompetence, the lack of accountability of those in ivory towers and the failure of the GMC to grasp this nettle and show leadership. Should those entrusted with the highest responsibilities in medicine be immune from charges of deficient professional performance? Or are they as accountable as the rest of us in our own individual fields of practice? Do the concepts of accountability and revalidation apply to some but not to others?
We have mobilised our legal team and our fund-raisers. Many of our regular supporters have already contributed to our fighting fund, for which we are immensely grateful. But we have not yet raised enough. We are asking for a one-off donation of between £10 and £50 by you to make this happen. We also need help in bringing this campaign to the attention of consultants, GPs, retired practitioners and others who are not yet aware of what we are doing and who would be interested in helping.
We have just a few weeks to raise the money – time is of the essence.
But what about the medical Students: we asked Dr Marks about his perspectives on how students can get involved. His answers were as follows: awareness of the current situation can only empower medical students applying for jobs in the current market. Perhaps more worryingly, junior doctors may not be willing to come forward for fear of damaging their own career prospects. Dr Marks commented
RemedyUK publicises its campaing for further scruitiny of MTAS
We even get fairly regular emails saying, dear Remedy, can you do something about me because this something has happened……then they write back and say, actually, don’t because I don’t want to get into trouble, and I don’t want to make things any worse for myself.
Overall there are grey clouds and blue skies over the application processes for jobs. Advice for students? Dr Marks had the following advice for the current crop of specialist trainees: his words may seem frank, but reflect reality.
I say to them all- in 5 years time you are going to be competing against each other for consultant jobs – make sure that you’re better than the next person… We are moving into a competitive market.
Overall Medical Educator supports the goals of RemedyUK and we encourage all our readers to become informed about the organisation from their website accessible here. You can also follow them on Facebook and Twitter. Donate to their legal challenge here.
To date, remedy Have raised £15 000 of the £20 000 needed for their legal challenge.
James the site has been development for some time: how do you feel the site has gone so far?
James Bateman, one of the founders of www.medicaleducator.co.uk
We’re really quite pleased about how the site has been used by medical students – we want to help people revise on exams – be it medical finals, an OSCE or an end of year assessment. We’ve resisted the temptation to use the site to market questions to lots of different users (e.g. doctors sitting their MRCP or General practitioners sitting entry examinations for interviews) – we stick just to medical student revision which makes things a lot simpler and our content much more focussed. We can remember what it was like doing those exams!
Have you enjoyed developing the content?
We’ve got MCQs, EMQs and short answer questions on examinations, and it’s been fun editing the questions whilst getting to know a new range of people associated in education. We tried to develop the revision site in the form that we would have wanted it when we were medical students. That’s why we’ve got the mix of videos, questions, MCQs, EMQs, even downloadable guides on exam technique etc. We really feel passionate about it: once you subscribe you get everything, and any new developments.
A lot of our users have made several great suggestions to improve the site. I like these ideas, it’s about the ethos that we’re looking to create, and we’re actively looking into them to improve things for the students.
People that know you tell us you just like to teach. Do you enjoy it?
I’ve played a part in a number of educational roles as a Specialist Registrar including work as a Royal College tutor, Clinical Teaching Fellow and Trust Medical Education representative. The people that help write for the site want to be involved in education: we do it for the fun of it. I like to teach – we regularly run morning sessions for doctors in training. Having regular contact with medical students on exams helps to keep things in perspective, and realise what a privilege teaching is.
What do you think the most common mistake made by medical students is?
It’s difficult to call it a mistake but when you consider how much pressure students are under its easy to understand why nerves can sometimes get the better of students when they are in an exam or an OSCE situation. Composure in this aspect is important. Helping students to prepare for this pressure cooker environment can be key. Consider the following:
“On examination there was a symmetrical peripheral inflammatory deforming polyarthropathy predominantly involving the metacarpophalangeal joints”
“On examination there was swelling over the metacarpophalangeal joints of both hands, which is warm to the touch”
“On examination there is disease affecting the hands, the metacarpophalangeal joints look red”
The findings may be identical, but calmness under pressure is important to learn as a skill. If you don’t present something you’ve seen, you don’t get marks for it.
What are your views on exam technique – is this just something you can learn?
Not really, its more complicated than that. The pressure from a medical exam, or medical finals and the revision leading up to that is intended to prepare medical students for the real world. In the United Kingdom, this is as a foundation year doctor, but students training anywhere from the US, Europe, Canada, United Arab Emirates, or India will be expected to perform under a difficult environment. So in part, preparing to present clearly in this stressful and high stakes environment is very important.
You scored 55/56 in the MRCP PACES exam, the second highest mark ever scored in the contemporary history of the exam. Is it just technique!?
The PACES exam is basically an OSCE style exam, and to pass any OSCE you need to adopt a sensible approach on examination and presentation. Knowledge is important, but any candidate needs to optimise their performance to get the best out of an examination/finals etc. I’ve taught many experienced junior doctors, and it is important to be able to demonstrate that you have good clinical skills.
Where do you See Medical Educator going in the future?
Medical educator isn’t just an exam revision site, or a multiple choice question site for medical finals: it’s a resource with videos, podcasts and more to help people get the most out of their medical training. We’re now on ITunes, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and a few other social networks. We want students to contribute to our content, we want to produce interactive OSCE stations, deliver more content from anaesthetics, emergency medicine and expand on exam content to date. We have lots of goals, but we’re young, flexible and highly adaptable. The team of contributors that we have assembled is willing to adapt. We’re willing to put educational theory into practice for the benefits of our own students.
What about the feedback from Medical Educator users?
Our feedback is encouraging: form our subscribers, over 95% would recommend us to a friend and the comments so far have been very kind. Our users understand what we’re trying to do, but I’d be the first to acknowledge problems with the site as it stands. We want to do more, and we’re not going to rest or let the site stagnate. We’ve not relied on exam sponsorship, large amounts of money, or support from the pharmaceutical industry. Whilst we would consider appropriate sponsorship, to date you won’t find any advertising on the site.
What about the mix of students using the site?
We try not to focus on the year of training; just on what constitutes good knowledge for a final year student. Our revision material is targeted at clinical problems that students will face in ‘real life’ along with what they will get in their medical finals. That goes for students from the UK, the US, Australia or anywhere else! We’ve had accesses from >100 countries and rising, so we have a good perspective on the international scene at the minute.
Alan Mortiboys is Professor of Educational Development at Birmingham City University, United Kingdom. He talks to James Bateman from the Medical Educator team about learning theories.
Professor Alan Mortiboys, Tutor for Educational Development at Birmingham City University
Professor Mortiboys lectures at BCU on educational development and also on formal “medical education” programmes to doctors and health professionals including the Masters in Medical Education at the University of Warwick. His publications include Teaching with Emotional Intelligence (Routledge 2005) and The Emotionally Intelligent Trainer’s Toolkit. (Fenman 2004). He is also a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.
Thanks for talking to us Alan. You came to the attention of Medical Educator after we heard you speak on learning styles. We write a little about this on the site: From your perspective on teaching, where do you see the typical doctor falling into in terms of the ‘pragmatists’, ‘theorists’ ‘reflectors’ and activists? Have any patterns emerged from your own experiences?
Many doctors I have met have the characteristics of the ‘pragmatist’ – asking ‘What’s the implications of this?’ or ‘How do I prepare to put this into practice?’ I guess this reflects the work that you do, normally called upon to make decisions, plan and act, often under pressure. If you want to behave a like, say, a reflector, you need plenty of time to step back and think things through thoroughly, with no compulsion to act, only to arrive at conclusions. I have not met many doctors whose working situation allows or encourages that. Here’s a question for you – do pragmatists set out to become doctors or does being a doctor make you a pragmatist?
Do you think people teaching should always have consciously have these concepts in their minds?
The case has been made that although the idea of these four learning styles has aroused a great deal of interest, there is no solid evidence to back up the theory. Nonetheless, teachers have found the idea very useful. Awareness of these different styles can usefully inform your planning for any episode of teaching. You can say to yourself, ‘If these learning styles do exist, what will there be in this session that I am planning which will engage each of the activist/ reflector/theorist/ pragmatist, given that they each look for something different as a learner?’
Others have suggested that you should help your learners become aware of their learning style and assist them in developing their less favoured styles. That means to help the activist, for example, to know how to respond productively when they are in a situation in which there is no opportunity to learn by doing, by trial and error.
The question for you as a teacher is, do you set out to acknowledge and accommodate people’s learning styles, or to develop and shape them?
I was intrigued when I first heard your comments on multiple intelligences. Most medical students won’t know what this means: tell us a little about it.
Howard Gardner‘s idea of multiple intelligences challenged the notion that there is one form of intelligence which incidentally can be measured by an IQ test. He suggested back in the 1980’s that we have seven intelligences, each of which is developed to a greater of lesser extent in every one of us. We each have our own intelligence profile. The question is not, ‘How intelligent are you?’ but ‘How are you intelligent?’
The seven are: linguistic, logical mathematical, spatial, musical, bodily kinaesthetic, interpersonal and intrapersonal.
Like learning styles, the evidence for the existence for these intelligences has been questioned. Like learning styles, the idea has proved very popular in some sectors of education.
How do you see multiple intelligences applying to student and junior doctors as they go through their training?
As with learning styles, the first step is to become aware of your own preferred/dominant intelligences and then decide – are you going to play to your strengths or are you going to improve your less developed intelligences? It can be liberating to recognise that you are never going to learn well by reading about things (linguistic) but that by manipulating objects and experimenting with them, you will always learn rapidly(bodily kinaesthetic).
You also write on emotional intelligence. Is this an important characteristic for medical students?
My chief interest in emotional intelligence is in how it applies to teaching. I am convinced that the effective teacher has to use emotional intelligence, that is, put energy into:
Encouraging an emotional state in your learners that is conducive to learning
Recognising and responding to the feelings of both yourself and your learners in the classroom, in order to make you both more effective in your respective roles
Daniel Goleman’s definition of emotional intelligence, which is not specific to any occupation, is:
Professor Alan Mortiboys: Teaching with Emotional Intelligence
“The capacity for recognising our own feelings and those of others, for motivating ourselves, and for managing emotions well in ourselves and in our relationships’. You cannot avoid the emotional dimension in your work, whether in dealing with patients or with colleagues, and a developed emotional intelligence will help you to function more effectively, giving you more energy to tackle problems and more resilience when under pressure.”
Medical Educator Would like to thank Professor Alan Mortiboys for his contribution.
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