.jpg)
Our current First Year Student Doctors undertook our annual trip to the Altcar Training Camp last week, as part of an ongoing collaboration between the University and army personnel in Liverpool 208 Field Hospital..jpg)
The session was co-ordinated by the Year 1 Team and Professor Emeritus John Earis, and put students through a series of non-medical planning and command exercises designed to challenge them both mentally and physically, and to encourage effective planning and teamwork in an unfamiliar environment..jpg)
The aim is to allow students to learn lessons that they can then apply to their clinical practice and teams both now and in their future careers.
Students were grouped with peers they didn't know, and who attend different teaching sessions than their own, in order to demonstrate the challenges of working in multi-disciplinary teams.
There were 10 stations they rotated through throughout the day, and for which they elected a different leader from within their group. Leaders were encouraged to formulate plans to complete each task, whilst delegating tasks within the wider group..jpg)
The exercises themselves are true-to-life scenarios used by the Armed Forces in their Officer Recruitment Training and form part of the MBChB programme’s ‘Clinical Team’ theme, focusing on developing an understanding of self and others, a key component of successful medical practice.
They also demonstrate the importance of effective leadership and assessment in unfamiliar situations, and students were offered the chance to feedback both on each other’s performance, the leader’s performance, and received commentary from the Army Instructors after each task, detailing how their performance would relate to a clinical environment..jpg)
Key themes that emerged from the activities were the art of listening, of creating an effective organisational structure, and how to assess complex scenarios under pressured conditions.
Students were also encouraged to reflect on each other’s leadership styles, and how competing techniques from different approaches might be incorporated into differing but equally effective approaches.
The session concluded with a timed casualty recovery or ‘stretcher race’ which combined these themes. The groups undertook a mile run whilst carrying a loaded stretcher and were ranked by their finishing position..jpg)
Student Doctor Andrzej Krystowski said one of the biggest takeaways was conflict resolution and the importance of effective communication:
“It was really nice to meet people from other lecture and class groups in a way that went beyond basic introductions and put you straight into a difficult task. It really encouraged you to get to grips with how to work effectively as a team and to quickly understand each other’s strengths and weaknesses”..jpg)
“The biggest lesson I took from it was how important communication is between a team and their leader, and how quickly the leader has to resolve issues if opinions clash on the best course of action".
"Today really brought to life those aspects of what it must be like to work in a clinical environment under competing pressures, and how to respect one another and work effectively”..jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
Well done to our Year One students! And huge thanks to Professor Earis and the entire team at 208 Field Hospital who play such an important role in the MBChB programme here at Liverpool.