General information for clinical students
| Awards for Teaching Excellence for NHS teachers |
| Awards for Excellence in Teaching by NHS staff are made annually. The awards are open to all NHS-salaried staff (working in any healthcare profession) that teach medical undergraduates from Imperial. Imperial welcomes submissions for the Awards from the 4 main teaching hospitals, the district general hospitals, the mental health trusts or the primary care trusts. Submissions should be made to the Director of Education by the 31 January each year. |
| Students are encouraged to suggest nominations for recognition of their teachers. This should be channelled via the student representatives for your year. |
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| Cautions |
| During the course of your professional career you will repeatedly be required to undergo an enhanced Criminal Records Bureau disclosure. Undergraduates are reminded that all police cautions or convictions will be disclosed by this process and a recommendation to accept a caution following an offence should never be accepted without legal advice from a legal source cognisant of the implications of such a caution for a doctor. |
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| CRB checks |
| All students are required to have completed an advanced CRB disclosure via the College Registry before commencing Year 5 of the course. Previous disclosures are not acceptable. |
| Any student not in receipt of CRB clearance by the start of the Year 5 course will not be permitted to attend their O&G, Psychiatry or Paediatrics attachment, which will in turn lead to a delay in your Year 5 course completion. |
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| Dress code and student badge |
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Students are not required to wear short white coats when on clinical attachment at hospitals, unless directly advised otherwise by the NHS Trust where they are placed. You are expected to dress professionally, in a manner that will not cause offence to patients, relatives or colleagues, at all times. The following are not acceptable: trainers; jeans; low-cut, tight-fitting or revealing clothing; clothing with offensive logos or images; extremely short skirts. |
You must wear your medical student badge (given to you at the start of the clinical course) at all times. If you lose your name badge you must order a replacement from the FEO at Charing Cross campus. Please submit a cheque for £10, made payable to Imperial College London, together with the completed form [Word]. The badge can only include your title, first and last name. Orders can only be processed once we receive the cheque; delivery takes 2-3 weeks and you will be emailed when the new badge is ready for collection. |
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| Check your email and noticeboards |
| Email is the main method of communication between staff and students. You are responsible for checking your email on a daily basis or as often as possible. Please also check the intranet regularly for information and updates. |
| You should keep a daily watch on the site noticeboards where useful information will be posted. At Ashford, Central Middlesex, Ealing, Hillingdon, Northwick Park and West Middlesex Hospitals you will find information relevant to your courses posted on the noticeboards in your teaching centres. |
| Lecture notes, handouts and other course information are also published on the intranet. |
| Again, you will need to log-on regularly for new or updated information, and it will be very useful for you to become familiar with the intranet, which will continue to be updated over the next academic year. |
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| Policy regarding non-delivered teaching |
| It is important to emphasise that learning is the responsibility of students. Academic and clinical staff members provide teaching in order to help students to learn, but it has never been the policy that all areas of intended student learning must be embodied in formal teaching. Students are frequently told that a particular aspect of their learning should be covered by private study. |
| The same principle applies to teaching that appears in the timetable but is not delivered. While teachers make all possible efforts to ensure that any cancelled teaching is rescheduled, this is not always possible. It is the responsibility of students to cover any such missed material by independent study. Non-delivery of teaching on a particular topic does not mean that the topic will not be tested in examinations. |
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| Problems on the course |
| If you have any problems whilst on the course, there are a number of people you can contact for advice and guidance. If you have problems related to the specific attachment you are on, speak to the firm leader in the first instance or to the teaching coordinator at your site. For personal problems, you should contact your personal tutor or College counsellor who will be able to help you in confidence. Student year representatives and the Students’ Union (ICSM SU) can also help you; the Staff Student Liaison Group is there to address student concerns and solve problems and is attended by year representatives and the SU. Please speak to the SU if you feel there is a problem which needs resolving at this level, and they will ensure that the matter is raised. Finally, do not hesitate to contact the FEO, the staff of which are happy to help and advise. |
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| Student On-Line Evaluation (SOLE) |
| As an integral part of our quality assurance systems, we will ask for feedback from you regarding your clinical attachments in order to assess the quality of your teaching. Feedback from students is used to improve teaching and is vital in monitoring the course. |
| All student feedback will be collected using the Student On-line Evaluation Scheme (SOLE). At the end of each attachment, you will receive an email prompt asking you to take part in SOLE, in order to give your comments on the negative and positive aspects of your teaching. |
| SOLE is entirely anonymous, so please feel free to make any comments that would be constructive in improving your teaching, or will ensure the continuation of good practises, which are already in place. |
| Your feedback is important; we fully encourage all students to take part in SOLE. |
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| Students attending casualty |
| In the past, there have been incidences of students directly attending casualty or outpatients for minor ailments, rather than seeing their GP in the first instance (sometimes on the advice of consultants to whom they have been attached). Due to changes in the nature of primary care funding, it is no longer acceptable either clinically or financially for medical student to by-pass their GP and go straight into secondary care. |
| If you have a minor ailment which requires treatment, please arrange to see your GP. |
| If you require advice on whether or not it may be necessary for you to report directly to A&E for a condition you think may be potentially more urgent, please contact NHS Direct on 0845 4647 for nurse advice and health information. This helpline is open 24 hours. |
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| Student Progress Group |
| Attendance will be noted and you are expected to attend all the identified activities unless it has been agreed with the firm leader that you can miss certain activities for a good reason. If a student has repeated low grades, poor performance and low attendance (without extenuating circumstances) he/she will be referred to the Student Progress Group for review and monitoring. The Student Progress Group will make recommendations to the Head of Undergraduate Medicine as to subsequent action, e.g: a repeat attachment or, in cases of continuing poor performance, the student may be asked to leave. Your assessments will also be reviewed at the time of your final examinations, especially if you are a borderline candidate. If personal difficulties are affecting your work, please inform an academic member of staff as soon as possible. |
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