C21: Developing tomorrow's doctors

Partnerships remain one of the foundation stones of this project and since the last update, more and more people have been working hard to turn ‘blue sky thinking’ into practical proposals. Almost 200 staff, students and clinicians completed the initial consultation exercise, a further 200 clinicians and scientists have been involved in developing detailed learning outcomes, and a number of new faces have joined the team of individuals leading the C21 project.

So what has been the outcome of all this activity…

To start with, more than 3,000 learning outcomes have been identified. Over the past six months 200 clinicians and scientists from across Wales have been involved in 22 clinical discipline focused learning outcomes groups (DFLOGs)drafting specific outcomes which they feel students need to have achieved by the end of the programme in order to meet the requirements of tomorrow’s doctors. We will shortly be circulating the specialist lists to all clinicians in each discipline for approval before refining the syllabus and considering when, where, who and how best to deliver these outcomes in the new curriculum.

The full analysis and summary of the  Consultation January 2011 was completed and circulated in June 2011 and produced 154 Points and Recommendations that have been used by the C21 project groups to shape the development of the new curriculum. Based on this and a review of best practice within medical education a draft paper – the CARDIFF Curriculum - has been developed which establishes the principles, values and a high level indication of the structure for the new curriculum.

The CARDIFF Curriculum will be expanded upon at the The way forward for Medical Education in Wales . A number of the C21 project leads will be outlining their plans for the various aspects of medical education in Cardiff and there will be opportunities for delegates to question them on their plans and to have their say on the proposals.

The Away Day also provides a chance for us to introduce some of the new faces involved in the C21 Project:

• Dr Anne Marie Cunningham, has been appointed to lead the development of e-learning in the curriculum
• Prof Alex Anstey and Dr Stephen Hunter have agreed to review leadership and service improvement within the medical programme to ensure we make Today’s Students, Tomorrow’s Doctors and the Future Clinical Leaders .
• Sally Blake, will lead a project to improve staff development because we believe that for our students to become the best doctors they need to learn from the best teachers. Be the Best, Learn from the Best

One area where considerable progress is being made is Community based learning. Led by Dr Kamila Hawthorne, the group is meeting with the local Health Boards, GP practitioners and other providers to develop an exciting range of placements for students and is exploring opportunities to establish community based teaching hubs in Cardiff, Bridgend, Barry, Newport and Merthyr Tydfil. One of the outcomes from this work has been a joint proposal with Cwm Taf Health Board for an £5m extension to the Merthyr Health Park to provide state-of-the-art teaching facilities.

Finally, we continue to work tirelessly to enhance the existing programme, and we have established a new group led by Prof Mike Owen to identify opportunities for piloting and introducing elements of the exciting, cutting-edge proposals for the new curriculum into the existing programme, to aid the transition and to continue to improve the experience of our existing students.

That brings you up-to-date with some of the big developments to date. As we progress into the detailed development, we are looking forward to working with more teachers, doctors, and students to make the new curriculum a reality and here are just some of the things to look out for over the coming months…

• C21: What does it mean for you? – As part of our commitment to ensuring that everyone is aware of the plans and can contribute to their development we will be taking the C21 project out and about and delivering a series of interactive presentations to students, clinicians and administrators across Wales.
• New syllabus and Curriculum – building on the feedback from the September Away Day, we’ll begin the detailed planning of the new curriculum and will be increasingly working with stakeholder representatives to finalise the syllabus and to ensure the proposals are practical.
• Admission and Student Recruitment – we’ll be undertaking an extensive review of our arrangements for student recruitment and admissions to ensure that they continue to support our objective of attracting and training the very best doctors for Wales.
• World Class – we’ve been undertaking a piece of research to define what makes an undergraduate medical programme world-class and once identified we’ll use this definition to develop benchmarks against which we can measure our progress towards this ambitious objective.
• Faculty development – Over the next two years we will be investing heavily in an innovative and comprehensive staff development programme and, from October 2011, staff should begin to see some signs of the new opportunities that will be available.
• Consultation Exercise – At the end of the development process, in December 2011, we are committed to consulting with you all again to ensure that the detailed proposals developed are the right ones and that they will create the world-class medical programme our students deserve.