JMAC education

I can’t dance, but next week I'm dancing on stage in a theatre that seats 1100 people. I’m in a musical called Rock of Ages. I’m a big fan of musical theatre and having performed a fair bit at school and university, a career in medicine doesn’t mix with the frequent rehearsals and the pressures of performance week. So it’s been great to be back on stage – but I’m no triple threat. I can act ok (for a fairly narrow range of characters), I can sing and hold a tune (and have to work hard on the harmonies), but I can’t dance. Sure, at weddings and nights out after a few beers I might move in time to some music but according to my family it is mainly shuffling around moving my shoulders a lot. So I was pretty disconcerted in Rock of Ages with a role of Hertz, who is pretty stiff and uptight, when the director asked EVERYONE to join in for four ensemble dances. You know the ones, everyone on stage moving together neatly synchronised and choreographed – including me. But dancing is a skill, I teach skills, I’m open to challenges and I have a strong belief in giving it a go and not bringing yourself down with automatic negative thinking. And I've pretty much got there, it's not perfect but it looks pretty good with the whole ensemble moving together – including me. How did we get there? (I wasn’t the only one with some nerves about dancing): 🕺 Lots of repetition 💃 Lots or practice 🕺 Breaking the dance into small component parts 💃 Accepting I wasn’t going to get straight away 🕺 Working on small aspects away from the group 💃 Slowly bringing it all together 🕺 Not comparing myself to others who 'just got it' 💃 Lots of encouragement from others 🕺 Lots of giggling at myself too and enjoying it

𝗧𝗲𝗮𝗰𝗵 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗽𝗲𝗼𝗽𝗹𝗲 𝗶𝗻 𝗳𝗿𝗼𝗻𝘁 𝗼𝗳 𝘆𝗼𝘂. It sounds utterly ridiculous – why would you teach anyone else. However, how many times do we recycle old presentations or teaching sessions, for example: “I’ve taught midwives about neonatal resuscitation, so I’ll use the same lesson plan and slides when I teach the emergency medicine registrars”. The content maybe similar and indeed the concept will be exactly the same, however teaching needs to be relevant and accessible to the learners in front of you. Everyone will attend with different experience, different background knowledge and different understanding of what we are going to teach. To really engage your learners and maximise learning, its important to know where they are coming from. When I’m preparing teaching, I like to know who is going to be there, what role they have, what previous similar sessions they’ve had. And at the start of the session I’ll try and gauge existing knowledge and understanding, with a poll, with small discussion groups, or throwing some questions out there. Sure I might base aspects of the session on similar presentations, but I’ll be rethinking and tweaking my resources and planning to make it relevant for the people in front of me that day.

𝗧𝗲𝗮𝗰𝗵 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗽𝗲𝗼𝗽𝗹𝗲 𝗶𝗻 𝗳𝗿𝗼𝗻𝘁 𝗼𝗳 𝘆𝗼𝘂. It sounds utterly ridiculous – why would you teach anyone else. However, how many times do we recycle old presentations or teaching sessions, for example: “I’ve taught midwives about neonatal resuscitation, so I’ll use the same lesson plan and slides when I teach the emergency medicine registrars”. The content maybe similar and indeed the concept will be exactly the same, however teaching needs to be relevant and accessible to the learners in front of you. Everyone will attend with different experience, different background knowledge and different understanding of what we are going to teach. To really engage your learners and maximise learning, its important to know where they are coming from. When I’m preparing teaching, I like to know who is going to be there, what role they have, what previous similar sessions they’ve had. And at the start of the session I’ll try and gauge existing knowledge and understanding, with a poll, with small discussion groups, or throwing some questions out there. Sure I might base aspects of the session on similar presentations, but I’ll be rethinking and tweaking my resources and planning to make it relevant for the people in front of me that day.

𝗠𝘆 𝗳𝗶𝗿𝘀𝘁 𝗷𝗼𝗯 (that lasted more than a couple of weeks) was working in a pub. That job taught me more about medicine than the first couple of years at medical school. There’s something about interacting with people – not quite all walks of life, but you certainly get a wide variety in a pub – when they are there for a specific transaction, a few drinks, a meal, and your sole purpose is to help them with that. Learning about people’s needs, concerns and managing expectations is a key part in any service industry and also in healthcare. As a pretty naïve kid in my late teens and early twenties learning how to communicate with customers as well as observing people and their interactions set me up well to understand a bit more about the doctor-patient relationship. In education the same applies: understanding what people want, managing their expectations and being able to communicate with anyone who is in front of you is a key skill. Working in the pub also helped me understand my work ethic and job satisfaction. I was initially employed as a pot-washer, and after a couple of years I was behind the bar, setting up and closing, doing stocktakes, doing the gardening and babysitting the landlord’s kids. All of that progression happened by accident. By working hard, I was asked to do more and I tried to step up to what was asked of me. And I had that instant satisfaction of seeing the results of hard work and being willing to take on challenges. In education it is easy to stick with what you know, and stay in your comfort zone. It is a challenge to try something different but in general you get to see instant rewards by teaching in a different style.

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