New year. New project.

DSCN3202The new academic year of 2014/2015 started with great excitement in the Faculty of Medicine at Memorial: 81 students, the Class of 2018, starting Phase 1; and 81 students, the Class of 2017, returning from their summer research projects for the final part of Phase 2; plus the bonus of being in the newly commissioned building with its state of the art teaching facilities.

See: http://www.med.mun.ca/getdoc/ce93a13b-3920-4c4d-bed9-08aa18c7ab8b/MedSchool-Expansion.aspx

It was most fulfilling to participate in some Phase 1 and Phase 2 teaching on the themes of social accountability and community engagement.

There was also excitement in the Faculty with the news and pictures of the ceremony in Milan for the award of excellence in social accountability.

See: http://www.med.mun.ca/Medicine/CommunicationsNews/NewsMedicine/September-2014/Memorial-receives-international-excellence-in-soci.aspx

See too: http://www.iainrobbe.com/the-academic-years-roll-on/

My new project involves evaluating student engagement in the MD curriculum and in the life of the medical school and the wider community in relation to international standards. Discussions with faculty and students have already begun to identify the range and depth of student engagement at the Faculty of Medicine.

It is so exhilarating to be in the environment at Memorial with a culture and society that value medical education.

Finally, it was heartening to have a peer-reviewed paper published earlier this month.

Robbé, I.J. (2014) Revealing the hidden curriculum and reducing cultural reproduction: small steps on a long road. Medical Education, 48: 842–848.

My paper is a commentary on a paper by Elspeth Hill and colleagues.                        Hill, E., Bowman, K., Stalmeijer, R., & Hart, J. (2014) You’ve got to know the rules to play the game: how medical students negotiate the hidden curriculum of surgical careers. Medical Education, 48: 884–894.

I have the Membership of the Royal College of Surgeons (MRCS, London) qualification from more than 30 years ago when I was contemplating vascular surgery as a career. The Hill et alia paper fitted well with my research with Dr Stephen Brigley before he retired and more recently with Dr Liz Mossop (University of Nottingham, UK) in veterinary education.

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About Iain Robbe

I am a medical practitioner (MB, BS, 1980; MRCS, LRCP, 1980) registered with the General Medical Council of the United Kingdom. During the COVID-19 pandemic I reactivated my licence to practise; I relinquished the licence to practise in 2024. I remain active as a Clinical Medical Educationist participating in a number of projects(1,2,3) with the universities of St Mary’s and Dalhousie in Nova Scotia and Mount Allison in New Brunswick, inter alia. I have completed projects with the veterinary schools in the universities of Bristol, Edinburgh and Nottingham(4). My focus is on teaching and research in professionalism(5) and identity(6), ethics, and communications, and particularly the influences of vernacular architecture on the creation of positive learning experiences in undergraduate and postgraduate medical education(1). I have the degree of Master in Public Health from the University of London (1985) and the degree of Master in Medical Education with distinction from the University of Wales (2001). The guiding principles in my practices are based on andragogy and humanism, and the prime ethical principle of autonomy for the individual and in population health(5,7). (1) https://www.iainrobbe.com/labour-day-architecture/ (2) http://www.iainrobbe.com/labour-day-learning-environments/ (3) http://www.iainrobbe.com/mta_families/ (4) https://www.iainrobbe.com/communication-skills/ (5) https://www.iainrobbe.com/covid-19-and-trust/ (6) https://www.iainrobbe.com/identity-fluidity/ (7) https://www.iainrobbe.com/covid-19-and-face-coverings/

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