This course has helped me to improve my confidence and gave me an understanding of what can be done to improve the learning experience of my students

Firstly, can you describe your role in medicine and a brief summary of your career path up until starting on the PGCert in Medical Education?

I am a consultant paediatrician in Grimsby, at the Diana Princess of Wales Hospital. I went to university in India and then completed my post-graduate training in paediatrics with the Yorkshire Deanery. I recently took on the role of college tutor for paediatrics at our Trust.

What led you to study a course in medical education?

As a college tutor, I work with the trainees in designing the teaching rota and addressing the training issues. We also get medical students from Hull and York Medical School and Sheffield University. I have always been enthusiastic about teaching. Studying a postgraduate degree in medical education helped me to improve my abilities in delivering teaching to paediatric trainees as well as medical students.

Why did you choose Sheffield to study at?

In my search I found that Sheffield University has a very structured and well-planned course that can be completed while performing my full-time, busy job as a consultant paediatrician.

What did you enjoy most about the course?

Everything about the course was good. However, I especially enjoyed the learning theories in module one. What I learnt helps me to design my teaching session depending on the topic, based on what learning theory it is related to. I never thought about this before!

How has the course impacted you - personally or professionally? 

This course has helped me to improve my confidence and gave me an understanding of what can be done to improve the learning experience of my students. It gave me a thought process that I can adapt to take my students' understanding to the next level from where they are currently.

As a part of the course, we also had teaching on academic writing skills. This was very useful for me, and some of the learnings from this session I use when I do my clinic letters. I am so grateful to the English tutors who were on this course. They do an excellent job of critiquing grammar, sentence formation and paragraphs. Going through the assignment with them before submission will ensure that a third person can understand your work. This gives you confidence in submitting the assignment.

I also had an opportunity to meet other colleagues from various specialities across Yorkshire. There were some very good academic trainees and foundation doctors who were doing the course. It is good to know that this course is pursued at such an early career stage, which I wish I could have done. 

How did you fund the course?

The course was funded by postgraduate medical education at Grimsby (in the hospital I work in). I am very grateful to the PGME team for funding the course.

What would you say to healthcare professionals considering applying to our course?

It is an excellent course. The faculty is very helpful and easy to approach. They are very flexible in accommodating the requests and helping the candidates.

Anyone can do this course, and this can fit in our busy schedules as it has only two days of face-to-face delivery sessions per module - for three modules, six days in total. We can always contact the tutors by email if we have any queries, and they usually reply very soon.

The assignments may appear to be an issue, but you are doing this in small portions every week, and so by the end of the module we are just tidying up our work to be submitted.