Placement Top Tips from LTHT Undergraduate Hub

Hi everyone, 

We’re excited to be featured in this issue of the Worsley times!

My name is Polly and I’m one of a team of Clinical Teaching Fellows based in the Undergraduate Hub at St James’ Hospital. 

Hopefully you’ll get to meet us on your placements within Leeds, but even if you’re not on placement with us we have lots of resources available to help on our Padlet and Instagram!

I wanted to start this off with our top tips for placement. Whether you’re a 3^rd year who’s just worked out how to use the shuttle bus, or a 5^th year who knows all the best staff rooms to get a coffee from, placement can sometimes be a difficult learning environment.

Making the most out of your placements

• Go to placement and turn up on time- find out the structure of the day for the ward staff
• Set targets for what you want to get out of each placement
• Set yourself targets for the day
• Practice, practice, practice – histories, examinations, skills etc. 
• Use the whole range of allied health professionals you will come across

How to engage on a ward round

• Introduce yourself
• Ask questions!
• Present to a senior- pick a patient and read up prior to ward round
• Practice documenting the ward round (even if it’s just on a piece of scrap paper!)
• Practice making your own jobs list – at the end compare with the junior doctors. 
• Have a go at prioritising them- which need doing first?
• Identify patients you could practise taking a history or examination on

The ward round has finished, and the junior doctors are very busy. What could you do?

• Ask the junior doctors if you could shadow them 
• Take a history from a patient and present this
• Practice examinations- use those patients you identified on ward round. How many clinical signs you can find in one patient
• Shadow other MDT members- find out how everyone contributes to patient care.
• Ask how you can help

We hope this is helpful.

You can find us on Instagram @hub_ltht for Hub Hints, MCQs and videos.

We also have our Hub Padlet: https://padlet.com/mededleeds/undergraduate_hub This has loads of learning resources for your year group as well as booking links for our SDP room!