All 2 entries tagged Peersupport

Peer Support

One of the most beneficial and enjoyable aspects of being a student at Warwick Medical School is the way in which members of the second-year cohort work together to help newer students. There are several ways in which this happens and the benefits are widespread and tremendous.

Usually on one evening every week during term time, a group of second-year students will present summaries of particularly difficult topics that the first-years have covered in lecture or group work in the previous week. This is known as "peer support", and is very famous in the MB ChB programme. Six pairs of second-years will each set up in a different classroom and will each cover a different topic, and then the first-years will divide themselves into six groups and split themselves across the stations. Every twenty minutes the groups rotate to another station, and within two hours the evening is completed. Stations can cover all sorts of topics and are usually quite diverse by design.

A handful of times in the year, the second-year students will also organise OSCE (Observed Structural Clinical Examination) peer-support sessions. The premise is the same: first-years will rotate between sessions which cover potential OSCE topics: history-taking, clinical examinations, other important hospital skills such as in-hospital resuscitation and hand washing.

This year also sees something new; in order to keep the continuity between first-year groups and their second-year instructors, the medical society has launched the “student-seminars” initiative, which matches a group of up to twelve first-years with two second-year instructors for an evening per week over the entire course of a five-week block. There are several of these groups running concurrently on various weekday evenings. Topics can be varied and diverse, but the setting is meant to focus less on rotation and covering many topics (as opposed to peer support) and more on covering a handful of difficult topics in depth.

The benefits of each of these initiatives are numerous. These student-led revision sessions allow students across cohorts to bond – I have got to know dozens of people in cohorts on either side of me just through attending peer-support sessions whom I never would have met otherwise. It also allows students to hear real-life accounts and experiences from those who’ve already lived through what they’re going through now. Each session helps students approach topics from different angles – not just the ones that are presented in lecture theatres or on Power Point slides. Not everyone learns in the same way, and hearing another person’s approach on a complicated topic can be extremely helpful for anyone who’s confused. And finally, all of the slides from the sessions are available online, allowing students to access them at any time – providing extremely valuable resources at revision time.

John

Megan Earle : 01 Feb 2016 11:17 |  Tags: John Mbchb Medsoc Peersupport Student Warwick Wms |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

In need of some support

Well it’s the last day of my Easter holidays, and exam fear has set in. My revision plan over Easter may have proved a little over optimistic but overall I’m pleased with the amount I have covered. One of the main things about medical school is that for a lot of learning comes down to repetition, and lots of it! I haven’t been able to do this as much over the holidays as I had planned but I hope that the work I have done has laid a good foundation to really consolidate that knowledge over the next six weeks (eek!).

Despite living like a hermit over the holidays working from home has worked well for me, personally I find working in a library with others a bit distracting, I find myself much more interested in total strangers conversations rather than my own work. I do find it helpful to work through clinical cases in groups though, other people will pick up on information that you considered irrelevant. Learning how to answer questions based on clinical cases is very different from anything I’ve done before, you really need to pay attention to the small details in the case as the answers are often right there in front of you, it’s easy to miss marks by just not reading all the information thoroughly.

Another thing that helps to develop this skill is Peer Support. Peer Support is run almost every week as a revision session for first years. The current second years teach us important topics from the weeks lectures. This is a really great resource; the second years really focus on the examinable topics and show us where to focus our learning so we don’t waste time. They are always willing to answer any other questions we may have about the course and most importantly are full of encouragement! Even after Christmas when the second years were no longer based at the medical school they braved the Gibbet Hill traffic to teach us every week. Peer support has even been run over the Easter holidays, for me these sessions have been a welcome break from my study and a chance to do the many practice questions they have provided for us. I hope I get the chance to take part in peer support next year, it’s not only an invaluable tool for the first years but many of the second years say it really helps them to revise key topics and keep things fresh in their minds. It’s also a great chance to develop presentation and teaching skills for that all important CV!

Despite the ever present exam fear I am looking forward to Block 5: Reproduction and Child Health. Pre reading material has been provided to us by the block leads and by peer support to help us get off to a good start in our last Block. I really hope that I can still take some enjoyment out of block 5 despite what lies in wait after!

Megan Earle : 21 Apr 2015 09:19 |  Tags: Joanne Mbchb Peersupport Student Warwick Wms |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem