Study Skills for UCL Medical Students (Study Skills for UCLMS); identifying the need and how to meet it?

Lead staff: Dr Emma Kelley, Dr Carys Phillips.

Lead students: Philip Marshall-Lockyer, Nicole Tay, Anais Deere, Dhivya Ilangovan.

Study skills are understood to be key to medical education [1] and help shape students into effective learners both at medical school and beyond. A recently published article in RUMS review (medical student-led) raised the concern from medical students about the lack of Study Skills teaching available at UCLMS. Following this, ‘study skills clinics’ were offered to undergraduate medical students to discuss a specific study skill issue they were having for which there was a high uptake. The several recurring themes noted by the staff facilitating the clinic lead to two group forums being set up for students based on these themes where there were ongoing comments from students that there is a desire for further study skills support. As a result, it was essential that these concerns were investigated to improve students’ confidence with their study skills. Through focus groups and a questionnaire, we identified what study skills medical students at UCLMS felt they needed support with, how they would like it delivered and what resources the medical school could provide. We now hope to utilise this data to provide feedback on the state of study skills teaching and inform recommendations for improvement moving forward. Although we still have a lot of work ahead of us, we have high hopes for the future and are already in the process of creating a new Study Skills Moodle page to improve the accessibility of the resources available. [1] Dwarika-Bhagat N, Sa B, Majumder MAA. Does study skill matter? A descriptive study on undergraduate health profession students in the University of the West Indies. Education in Medicine Journal. 2017;9(2):27–40. https://doi.org/10.21315/eimj2017.9.2.3

Setting informal deadlines for tasks to be completed is a great way of motivating yourself to keep on track, particularly when other commitments get in the way. It also means the rest of the team is more aware of how the project is progressing, even if they are not involved in every aspect of it, leading to greater coherence within the group. Therefore, it is also important to let your team know when you have other commitments to prioritise, so that such deadlines can be planned around this and nobody is left overloaded with work.