Read Time: 6 minutes
Vikram Thirupathirajan (Y5, Education Officer for UCL Surgical Society) provides his views on the benefits of teaching at medical school and how to get involved in teaching as a medical student.
As a doctor, you will be a teacher- regardless of what specialty you go into. No matter what stage of your career you are at, part of your role will be to conduct some form of teaching to those in an earlier stage of the career to you. So it does not come as a surprise when teaching forms one of the highest-scoring criteria for a medical portfolio.
In addition to helping with your portfolio, teaching, particularly as a medical student, has several other benefits attached to it.
Teaching is the highest form of learning
This is a unique benefit for teaching as a medical student, as medical school is a key time when you will be learning some core concepts that will stick with you for life. There is scientific evidence to suggest that teaching someone else about a particular topic is arguably the best way of retaining information, which makes sense if you think about it- in order to be able to teach someone something, you will have learnt that something to a high standard yourself. Especially in a course where what you are taught will be needed for life, being involved with teaching will help you consolidate that knowledge for yourself as you teach it to others.
Starting early sets you up for life
In a profession where teaching is incredibly prevalent, being able to master the skills early is very useful. What better place to start, than at medical school itself? This is the place where what you teach, and the skills required will be most transferable to when you teach as a doctor.
You become an organised medical student
Teaching at medical school is on the whole, voluntary, and requires extra time to do it. Naturally, setting aside time for teaching, particularly if you are organising the teaching yourself, will help you learn how to prioritise and how to schedule. This will in turn make you organise your own studying and you’ll notice yourself becoming more productive and efficient.
Getting into teaching as a medical student
Have I convinced you enough to get into teaching? UCLMS offers a wealth of opportunities for medical students to undertake teaching at medical school.
Join a student society
This is one of the easiest ways to get involved in teaching. This is a very good starting point to get a flavour of what teaching as a medical student is like. You can then build on this afterwards to take up roles in education subcommittees in the society and/or onto the main committee as the education lead for the society. Taking up such roles will enable you to organise and introduce widely recognised teaching across the medical school. AGMs are currently upcoming this month so if a committee role interests you, do consider applying. Applications to be a tutor for events vary in terms of when they go live, so do keep an eye out for updates, or contact the society’s education lead.
Most sports clubs, in addition to UCL Medical and Surgical Societies conduct teaching for younger year students. For preclinical year students, Medical Society tends to teach physiology-related topics, while Surgical Society teaches anatomy topics. Sports clubs will conduct more informal teaching on all topics. For clinical years, most societies will conduct teaching on all things clinical medicine and surgery.
Set up your own teaching
Alternatively, you can independently start up your own teaching series on your own or together with a few other medical students (I would recommend the latter). Whilst getting a wide reach with this may take longer to achieve (but it definitely will happen given the age of social media), you have more freedom and flexibility in when you start, what you teach and can truly make it your own thing.
Setting up your own teaching or being on a committee role for education also gives you the opportunity to try and introduce something new- embrace this! Whilst teaching the same topics in the same way is good to reinforce memory, it can limit you to what you teach. Therefore, look for gaps; if a particular topic isn’t taught very well, focus on that. Alternatively, try a different approach to teaching something. For example, some students in the past have taught by the traditional method of going through each topic one at a time, whilst others have approached it as a case-scenario. Trying different ways offers a new perspective to learning content, which is very useful given that medicine is such an evolving field. Furthermore, introducing innovative teachings can form a basis for research or audits.
Teaching with the medical school faculty
The medical school themselves also have opportunities available for teaching. Notably is the Anatomy Lab Near Peer Tutor (the Blue-coats). Agreed, the anatomy lab is on hold at the moment due to the current climate, but it is something that definitely will return. This opportunity is available for third year medical students and involves being student tutors to help teach and answer any questions that students in years one and two have about their anatomy dissection and related topics during their Anatomy Lab sessions. Information about this releases in the last week before the start of the new academic year- the medical school will email you themselves.
On a university-wide scale is the Transition Mentor Scheme. This involves mentoring students in their first year, part of which involves teaching. Student societies are increasingly adopting mentoring systems; mentoring is a brilliant way if you would like to be involved in widely recognised teaching but would like the freedom in choosing and organising what you would like to teach. Applications for this also open in term 3.
Though less traditional forms of teaching, the medical school’s education faculty also have numerous projects on offer. Examples of such projects include being question authors for formative exams, being involved in student Q&A and teaching for formative exams you helped write etc. Why, this very blog itself is a project from the medical school’s education faculty. Again, this will be widely recognised by the medical school, who will commend your work as necessary with certificates. Arguably more importantly, you will build contacts with the medical school faculty, get further opportunities and much better insights into the workings of your MB BS course. If you are interested in being involved in a project, let either myself, Anush, Jess or Maddie know and we can direct you appropriately.
Creating the future doctors
This is the reason why the idea of teaching exists to begin with- to pass on your knowledge to future generations. Medicine is a subject where being accurate and competent is important, and so younger-year students gaining insight into what you learnt and how is crucial. In fact, students will most relate to you, the older year medical students, because what you have experienced will be very similar to what they experience, and so you will be able to relate to students’ challenges best.
Therefore, by getting involved in teaching, you play a part in cultivating the next cohort of competent medical students and future doctors, both a huge accomplishment and honour.