Imperial College London Primary Care

In September 2016, five new quality improvement initiatives were launched across NHS organisations in Northwest London supported by the Collaboration for Leadership in Applied Health Research and Care (CLAHRC). The CLAHRC NWL programme undertakes research to develop and evaluate strategies for implementing research evidence through the use of quality improvement (QI) to improve outcomes and experience for patients. The projects include collaborations with a range of organisations in Northwest London, building on seven years of experience of the CLAHRC programme in delivering improvement projects. Clinical teams at Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust have developed two of the projects. One project will work with patients to develop and deliver patient-centred protocols for the delivery of non-invasive ventilation, an evidence-based treatment for Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD). It is hoped that enhanced patient-centred protocols will improve outcomes and experience for...

From April 2016 the Higher Education Funding Council (HEFCE) requires that, for journal articles and conference papers to be eligible for the next Research Excellence Framework (REF), they must be deposited in a repository. To be REF compliant, accepted manuscripts should be deposited in a college-based repository within three months of the date of acceptance for publication. Use this workflow to ensure your work meets the requirements of your funders and the post-2014 REF..For more information download Imperial’s Open Access Guide .For more help contact the Library Open Access team.

The Imperial College School of Public Health has a new Director of Postgraduate Taught Studies, Professor Paul Aylin. Professor Aylin has been the Director of Undergraduate Education for a number of years and he will now lead on and support some key initiatives and developments for our postgraduate teaching. Professor Aylin has overseen undergraduate education for many years, and before that he played an important role in developing modules for the MSc Epidemiology and Masters in Public Health. He is also Co-Director of the Dr Foster Unit. The new Director of Undergraduate Education replacing Professor Aylin is Dr Sonia Kumar, who takes on this role in addition to her existing role as Director of Undergraduate Primary Care Education. Since her arrival at Imperial College, the GP teaching team has doubled in size and she has been part of a number of successful bids to support innovative teaching projects. Her current interests lie in innovative approaches to teaching and learning s...

Do complex, time-consuming and variable memory-clinic referral criteria contribute to delays in the diagnosis of dementia? This is the question we looked at in a paper published in the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine today. When we looked at the criteria used by memory clinics in London, we found very variable combinations of cognitive tests, laboratory blood tests, urine tests and physical examination were in use.

Academic doctors Dr Graham Easton, Dr Carol Cooper and Dr Martin Block from the Department of Primary Care and Public Health at Imperial College London discuss how they became involved in medical writing and publishing. Watch the video ot their discussion .

September saw key members of the senior faculty team from Imperial College including our Director, Dr Sonia Kumar and Deputy Head of Undergraduate Medicine, Dr Jo Harris visit Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts for a fact finding mission. Harvard’s new medical curriculum “Pathways” has the integration of clinically relevant science and early patient exposure at its core, and this is woven into the fabric of all their teaching sessions. This ethos is plain to see in their small group teaching as well as their new “Practice of Medicine” course. Faculty members were able to participate in some of these highly engaging student roleplays and take part in a tutorial on the topic of empathy in medical students. Healthcare is obviously managed in a different way in the United States however Cambridge is possibly more similar to the UK model since this hosts one of the few publicly funded hospitals in the country. Primary Care also has a different meaning and comprises not ...

Dr Graham Easton On Wednesday 12 October I held an interview with our own Dr Gra ham Easton, Program Director of our GP training scheme and author of the recently published fictional GP surgery book "The Appointment". Yo u can listen to the full audio of the appointment on our new Soundcloud page  here Ben Broglia: What do you find rewarding about teaching Imperial students? Graham Easton: One of the great things is teaching people who are enthusiastic, keen, bright and passionate, which helps me refocus on why I went into medicine. It’s easy to get bogged down in the details of surgery, and teaching gives me the opportunity to step back. It gives me a chance to reflect on what we do and refresh my clinical skills, such as the neurological exam which I hated as a student! The final thing for me is the thrill of inspiring students, and the challenge of explaining a topic. BB: You recently had published a new book “The Appointment”, the story of a fictional morn...

On Wednesday 16 November 2016 the GP Teaching Team are organising a celebration of medical education around the theme “Tomorrow’s World: Educating Scientists, Doctors and Leaders of the future” in conjunction with the Faculty of Medicine. This annual event brings together faculty staff, clinicians and researchers for an exciting afternoon of innovative workshops, inspirational speeches, and of course the much-loved NHS Teachers Awards. This year, we are very proud to welcome Visiting Professor of Surgical Education at the University of Oxford Richard Canter to give the keynote speech on the subject of leadership, and are looking forward to an afternoon panel debate on medical student selection. Our workshop programme this year focuses on some of the current and future developments in medical education being spearheaded by Imperial College, including the use of Virtual Reality and Digital Learning and longitudinal integrated apprenticeships as seen in our pilot ICA course w...

Giles Kisby and Dr Radha Modgil at the BBC Radio 1 studio This placement has been a real eye opener into the range of work that GPs get involved with.  Within just the first week I followed GPs at Chelsea and Westminster working in the urgent care centre, in Hounslow working to replace inappropriate admissions to hospital with better support in the community and also travelled to Harrow to attend a Macmillan CCG meeting looking to better manage end of life care. I have always enjoyed my GP attachments but never before have I been exposed to the range of non-clinical work which many GPs get involved with.  This placement brought that side to the forefront - showcasing a diverse array of extra-clinical interests.  A good example was an evening with Dr Radha at Radio 1 for her programme "The Surgery" (inset) - not work I would traditionally associate with being a general  practitioner !  Similarly I was able to join Dr Easton plan a piece on Acromegaly for B...

At the start of this new academic year the team continues to be busy with many educational research projects across the range of  undergraduate primary care education. This includes collecting data from students and teachers to evaluate the effectiveness and impact of some new teaching initiatives including the year 3 ‘Medicine in the Community’ and year 5 ‘Integrated Clinical Apprenticeship’ pilots. We will report back on these findings in future newsletters, whilst some initial findings from these projects and others will be presented at the Society for Academic Primary Care conference at Madingley Hall in January. Other current research projects include looking at the use of augmented and virtual reality (AR & VR) in primary care teaching, teaching students about palliative care and researching their attitudes towards this, and also introducing students to health coaching and evaluating its use. If you would be interested in finding out more about any of these projects...

Year 5 Integrated Dermatology GP Course: Dr Emma Metters Year 5 Derm/Paeds GP Course Lead We have had a great start to the year with several groups of very enthusiastic students that have completed their rotations so far. The engagement in the departmental sessions has been brilliant and the students seem to be enjoying the breadth that the course covers.  I have been working with the hospital course lead, Dr James Shelley, and we have been looking at which topics get taught where in the course and there is a planned move towards teaching more ‘skin infections’ in primary care, which I think many of you are already doing as they are such common primary care problems.  We are also trying to rationalise the number of sign offs required for this attachment and we will be in touch when we have any updates. Year 5 GP-Paediatric Enrichment Week: This enrichment week is continuing to go well.  I have heard from several tutors regarding exciting new contacts and ...

                            Dr Ali Dhankot      Year 5 GPPHC Course lead The Year 5 GPPHC course continues to thrive and I am very excited to have taken over as course lead from my predecessor, Dr Neil Browning. There have been some important updates this year with the aim of reducing the number of assignments that need to be submitted, so please take a few moments to read the revised course guide.  A new DOPS, the 6-week baby check, has been introduced which we hope will give students a unique insight into this aspect of primary care. Feedback from our students shows much they value being able to consult independently and then discuss the cases with their tutor. They also enjoy the diversity and complexity of the patients they see in primary care, and often it is an eye opener for students, with many of their previous pre conceptions and ideas of what GPs do completely dispelled. Please keep...

The School of Public Health and its Opportunities Committee are pleased to announce the launch of a mentoring scheme. The School is committed to mentoring and recognises the important role it can play in supporting career advancement and increasing effectiveness and confidence. Our mentoring scheme is currently open to all staff (academic, research and professional/support). We are keen to support a variety of mentoring relationships: with senior staff or peers  short and long term relationships At whatever stage of your career we encourage you to think about whether having a mentor would be helpful to you. The School has run workshops for mentors over the summer and if you would like to receive mentoring then please complete the contact form at http://www.imperial.ac.uk/staff-development/development-options/talent-development/mentoring-at-imperial/publichealth/find-a-mentor-soph/ Requests will be kept confidential and the more information you can provide, the better we...

Bhakti Visani, a GP ST1 trainee talks about her psychiatric placement in a mother and baby unit. During my F2 year I undertook a 4 month psychiatry placement, based in a mother and baby unit. Before starting, psychiatry was definitely not in my top 5 list of coveted jobs. I initially saw it as just having to ‘get through’ the 4 months. Little did I know that this specialised cocktail of psychiatry, obstetrics and paediatrics would afford me the opportunity to learn about topics that will be invaluable to me as a GP. To me, the most important of these were risk assessment in both inpatient and outpatient settings, and being aware of which services to call upon in different scenarios. The ward itself was very homely, accommodating up to 7 mothers with their babies at a time. It was different to my previous experience of a general psychiatry ward, as it fostered a calm and nurturing environment for the service users. The nature of these womens’ illnesses inevitably made them vuln...

One of the objectives of the Department if Primary Care and Public Health is to raise the profile of General Practice within the medical school. Some of the initiatives we have started to achieve this aim include: Employing more GPs in academic roles Increasing the number of community teaching placements for medical students Setting up new Special Study Modules (e.g. in health inequalities, prison medicine) Integrating undergraduate teaching in general practice with postgraduate training of GP Specialist Trainees Working more closely with GP Training Schemes (such as the Imperial GP Training Programme) to offer GP trainees experience in teaching medical students Hold an annual careers day in collaboration with Health Education NW London and the Hammersmith & Fulham GP Federation Established an undergraduate GP society Encourage our academic GPs to be more active on social media, and to publish and present their work in academic forums Hold an annual GP Teachers Forum and...

Feedback helps answer: “How am I doing?” and “How can I get better?” It has been described as an essential element of the educational process that can help trainees reach their maximum potential (1). Feedback links the teaching and assessment roles of teachers and demonstrates your commitment to the learners (2). With this in mind here are my top tips to giving constructive feedback: Think about HOW, WHERE and WHEN you will give feedback Signpost: Students do not often recognise feedback unless they know it is coming B - Balanced -        Include positive and negative comments – what worked and what could be done differently. Give choices and suggestions for improvement. O - Observed -      Base feedback on what you have observed: "I saw..." "I heard you say...". Focus on 2-3 points to avoid overwhelming the learner. O - Objective -      Describe actions and behaviour, not personality. Take ownership of your feedback. S - Sp...

As part of our View from the Community series of articles, our Year 6 Specialty Choice Lead Dr Ros Herbert interviewed community teacher Dr Dana Beale, to get the inside track on what it's like being a community teacher for Imperial College. To read more articles like this, please sign up to our newsletter by emailing b.broglia@imperial.ac.uk Dana, tell me what first got you interested in homeless medicine? Dr Dana Beale aboard her narrowboat "Incredibly I was inspired by the same module I did as a student at Imperial College that I am now teaching on! Back then it was 'medical and social care of the homeless' and was based at the surgery for the homeless in Great Chapel Street - a fabulous service that showed me that primary care tailored to this vulnerable and challenging group existed and I promised myself there and then that I would return to work in this field." What makes you so enthusiastic about this work? "I find this line of work a brea...

On Wednesday 7 September, the keynote speaker at the NW London GP Careers day was Dr Tracey Batten, Chief Executive of the Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust. The event was organised jointly by Imperial College, Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust, Hammersmith & Fulham GP Federation, and Health Education NW England. The conference provides an opportunity to learn about career opportunities in primary care in NW London. Dr Batten spoke about plans for the future of the NHS in NW London; and the need for strong collaborative working between different sectors of the NHS. Other speakers from the Department of Primary Care and Public Health included Dr Samia Hassan, Dr David Mummery, Dr Martin Block, Dr Nigel de Kare-Silver, Dr Ravi Parekh, Dr Maham Stanyon, Dr Jens Foel, and medical student Ms Bassit Malik. The presentations from the meeting can be viewed on the Imperial College website.

Professor Azeem Majeed was selected as one of the United Kingdom's 50 most influential GPs in 2016 by the professional magazine Pulse .

The Appointment written by Imperial College GP Dr Graham Easton will be featured on the Radio 2 Fact not Fiction Book Club on Thursday 1 September. The book was selected with the help of a panel made up of Reading Agency and library staff from across the UK. The Appointment Despite the modern trend towards empowering patients and giving them more choice, the nuts and bolts of medical practice largely remain a mystery – a closed box. In fact, the more health information is available on the internet, the more patients can feel swamped and confused. The Appointment offers an intimate and honest account of how a typical GP tries to make sense of a patient’s health problems and manage them within the constraints of their health system and the short ten minute appointment. Experienced GP Dr Graham Easton shows how GPs really think, lays bare their professional strengths and weaknesses, and exposes what really influences their decisions about their patients’ health. Selection panel revi...

The Summer 2016 Newsletter from the Department of Primary Care and Public Health came out today. Our lead story was about the Imperial College teaching awards won by four of our academic GPs: Dr Sonia Kumar, Dr Joanne Harris, Dr Rosalind Herbert and Dr Elizabeth Muir Sonia Kumar received the President’s Medal for Outstanding Contribution to Teaching Excellence, the highest award for teaching at Imperial College. Dr Joanne Harris, Dr Rosalind Herbert and Dr Elizabeth Muir received the President’s Award for Excellence in Teaching. Of the 14 awards made for teaching excellence at Imperial College London in 2016, four were made to academic GPs, which reflects the excellent work of the Undergraduate Teaching Unit and the support we have received from the NHS GPs who help deliver our teaching programmes.

Every year, Imperial College London gives out Teaching Excellence Awards to NHS teachers. This year, we were very pleased that an award was given to one of our GP teachers, Dr Beena Gohil from the Oldfield Family Practice in Greenford. The students who had been placed with Dr Gohil for their primary care teaching were very positive about their experience with her. " I very much enjoyed my placement with Dr Gohil. She took the time out of her day to teach me about different aspects of general practice, and when I expressed my interest in becoming a GP, she gave me invaluable insight into her role in the community ”. " In addition to learning about general practice, Dr Gohil also allowed me the opportunity to find out more about the career and lifestyle of a GP. This was invaluable for a 5th year student who has many career decisions to make over the next 3 years. I felt I was able to ask Dr Gohil about her practice, her training and her lifestyle in order to get a real in...

Here are some links to help orientate Academic F2 Doctors joining the department. Department links https://www.facebook.com/groups/1667720966776660/ http://imperialprimarycare.blogspot.co.uk/ https://twitter.com/Imperial_PCPH Some previous articles written by F2 doctors http://www.bmj.com/content/351/bmj.h6171.abstract http://www.bmj.com/content/351/bmj.h3802 http://www.bmj.com/content/352/bmj.i1366 http://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/6/6/e010672.short http://bjgp.org/content/65/638/482.full.pdf+html http://jrs.sagepub.com/content/108/7/252.full http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/17571472.2016.1173939 http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/17571472.2016.1203509

At the request of the WHO Regional Office for the Eastern Mediterranean (EMRO), Imperial College London and it’s WHO Collaborating Centre for Public Health Education and Training (ICL-WHO CC) organised three days of bespoke intensive training tailored to develop and build the capacity of a cohort of mid-level and senior health professionals in Leadership in Epidemic and Pandemic Preparedness and Response under PIP (Pandemic Influenza Preparedness) Framework. This intensive training intended to equip health professionals with the tools required to manage their selves, organisations, services they provide and health systems they work in, efficiently and effectively, with particular emphasis on epidemic and pandemic situations. The content of the training is built around the best practices observed in recent epidemic and pandemic situations as well as WHO guidance for Pandemic Influenza Preparedness and Response and aims to help participants become more effective, efficient and successfu...

Dr Melek Somai is a new faculty member at the Global eHealth Unit (GeHU). Melek is a physician, biostatistician, and public health professional with expertise in clinical informatics and global health innovation. In his new role as teaching fellow in eLearning and eHealth at the Global eHealth Unit, Melek will lead the implementation of the GeHU visionary program in Health Information Technology and Innovation. Melek will be leading the efforts of the Global eHealth Unit to increase its capacity building programme in developing countries and its innovation and technology courses for the Masters Degree Program in Public Health. He is also a co-investigator of the EIT Health CARE CAMPUS program that aims to transform Active Ageing in Europe through the development of an innovative training curriculum for carers. Before joining us, Melek was a Fulbright scholar and a faculty member at the Division of Clinical Informatics at Harvard Faculty Medical Physicians, which he held with a joint...

On behalf of Susan English, Director of Education Management Academic Leadership Positions – Three Course Leader roles – First Responder (BLS), Reproduction, Development and Aging, and Genetics Dear colleagues I am writing to inform you of three Course Leader vacancies for which we are inviting applications.  These are new roles and the successful applicants will be responsible for providing the academic leadership for the relevant course. S/he will ensure that the course is current and valid, and that the design, content and delivery of the curriculum meet the overall aims of the year; also that the assessment is of high quality and aligns to the stated learning outcomes. This will involve working with course teachers to ensure high quality teaching.  The time commitment for these roles is not onerous, and this is an opportunity for clinicians and scientists with an interest in education to take on a leadership role and contribute to the exciting improvements we are...

"Imperial College London is, and will remain, a European university, whatever your view of the referendum outcome. We are very proud of the innovations, ideas and inspiration that come from the European members of Imperial’s global community. We are determined that political changes will not hold Imperial back from delivering excellence in research and education for the benefit of global society. We will vigorously defend our international values if they are threatened and will continue to think and act internationally. Our European students, staff and partners are crucial to the current and future success of this great university, and we look forward to continued strong ties with Europe and the world over the coming years. We are urgently seeking clarification from the government on the visa and fee status of non-UK European Union students, as well as other key policy areas for the College as the UK negotiates its future relationship with Europe. We will update the community, an...

On Friday June 23, the Imperial School of Public Health held a joint meeting with the Tri-Borough Public Health Team, which covers the London boroughs of Hammersmith and Fulham, Kensington and Chelsea, and Westminster. We had a productive meeting in which we discussed areas for collaboration for health improvement in NW London.

Many congratulations to academic GPs Dr Sonia Kumar, Dr Joanne Harris, Dr Rosalind Herbert and Dr Elizabeth Muir for being recognised for their contribution to teaching at Imperial College London. Sonia Kumar received the President’s Medal for Outstanding Contribution to Teaching Excellence, the highest award for teaching at Imperial College. Dr Joanne Harris, Dr Rosalind Herbert and Dr Elizabeth Muir received the President’s Award for Excellence in Teaching. Of the 14 awards made for teaching excellence at Imperial College London in 2016, four were made to academic GPs, which reflects the excellent work of the Undergraduate Teaching Unit in the Department of Primary Care and Public Health.

Dr Ravi Parekh ST3 GP trainee & ACF Throughout my years in GP VTS training the three letters C, S and A have been hanging over my head like a grey cloud. There seemed to be an incredible hype and fear surrounding the exam with rumours flying around, to the extent that I was surprised on the day to see that the examiners were actually real human beings and not monsters! I thought it might be useful to share some of my experiences in preparing for the exam, and the actual day itself for those who will be sitting the exam in the future. As medics, we are all very familiar with exams and I am sure each candidate understands which revision technique works well for them– so I must emphasise this is my experience and by no means the “right” or “best” way to approach CSA. Preparation… The most important thing that helped me in preparing for the CSA was practise, practise and more practise. Amongst the ST3s in our VTS we formed a revision group,   initially gathering...

A group of enthusiastic students at Imperial College School of Medicine set up a General Practice Society (ICGPS) back in 2014, with the aim of developing and promoting an interest in General Practice amongst medical students of all year groups. 2 years on, we have a rapidly growing society, now with 79 members and almost 300 people subscribed to our mailing list! Most recently, we held an event entitled ‘Specialist Careers in General Practice,’ on Tuesday 15th March 2016, where we wanted to show medical students the very varied career paths within General Practice. We had 4 very kind and interesting speakers, with incredibly diverse interests – Dr Graham Easton as a medical journalist, Dr Dana Beale with a special interest in working with the homeless, Dr Jasmin Malik who has experience with tropical/wilderness medicine and works as a part time GI endoscopist, and Dr Will Wall as a British Army GP. If you have any suggestions for further events, or would like ICGPS to adv...

Innovative Education using Medical Humanities Throughout my medical degree and foundation training, I have had few opportunities to engage in learning styles other than those focused on learning and retaining information. Having fond memories of my A-level English class, where we were encouraged to explore ideas rather than regurgitate facts, I was excited to attend Imperial’s conference on Innovative Education using Medical Humanities. Prescription poetry exercise The conference programme included a diverse range of speakers, including an actor, a music therapist and a sculptor, as well as doctors and medical students with strong interests in medical humanities. Giskin Day, lead for medical humanities teaching at Imperial provided an introduction to the concept of medical humanities as well as facilitating creative activities, my favourite of which was ‘prescription poetry’ (see picture) Speakers at the conference convincingly argued for the inclusion of medical...

By Maham Stanyon, GPVTS ST2   Do you practise according to guidelines? Can you hand on heart, pen to prescription pad, say that you are up to date with the latest recommendations in managing pre-diabetes, preventing falls in the elderly, and can rattle off the latest NICE cancer guidelines with confidence? Even before you get to the guidance itself, there is the dilemma of which one to read; keeping up to date with NICE, SIGN, Royal College recommendations and various expert panels is a full time job in itself, let alone treating patients, tending to QOF targets, carrying out audits and engaging with eportfolio. Even with 10 minutes per patient, where is the room in our day for browsing the latest updates? Enter the Red Whale GP update course; a course compiled by practising GPs giving an intelligent focused breakdown of the latest evidence in everything that presents to general practice. During our one-day course, akin to a normal clinic, we went from atrial fibrillatio...

by Dr Ros Herbert , Health Inequalities and Medical Education SCM Course Lead (r.herbert@imperial.ac.uk) This was the pitch made to a panel of 'Dragons' at the Society of Academic Primary Care conference in Cambridge recently. Modeled on the popular TV show, Dragons’ Den, a team made up of Giskin Day( Medical humanities Lecturer), medical student Hannah Tullett and myself, tried to persuade the panel to invest in an innovative new module in health inequalities that has been piloted very successfully at Imperial College. We argued that not only should medical students go to jail, but also to refugee clinics and homeless shelters – all settings in which practising medicine is particularly challenging. research shows that medical students often become less sympathetic to patients with social deprivation as they go through medical school. This is probably because these patients are most often seen in accident & emergency when problems are acute. Students have little expos...