DIMAH Meeting Minutes: Leicester Meeting 13th July 2017

Held on Thursday 13th July 2017 at Greenwood Institute of Child Health, Westcotes House, Westcotes Drive, University of Leicester, LE3 0QU
09.30am – 16.30pm

Present: Nisha Dogra, Riya George, Helen Orton, Andy Ward, Elora Baishnab, Sam Hibbitts, Liz Forty, Dave Wilson and Ioanna Maraki.

 

1. Apologies: Adrian Barrowdale, Davinder Singh, Enam Haque, Pete Leftwick, Margot Turner, Aarti Bansal, Rebecca Farringdon, Jon Ward, Angela Rowlands, Shuangyu Li, Jia Liu, Barry Ewart, Esther Murray, Helen Bintley, Kam Bhui, Judith Caboche, and Rachel Lindley.

2. Minutes from the last meeting: Agreed as a true record.

3. Matters arising from previous meeting:

 

Student Engagement: Jon Ward’s proposal on student engagement ideas were discussed and ways to establish student involvement, appropriate representation and the exact role students would play were explored. Potential avenues and concerns raised for exploring student involvement included the following suggestions:

1.) Collaboration with the GMC: Ioanna Maraki, Student Engagement Lead at the GMC informed DIMAH members of the following ways the GMC strives to actively engage medical students, which could provide potential opportunities for DIMAH involvement, these included:

a.) ‘Original liaison service’ where GMC ambassadors aim to engage medical students, offering bespoke sessions to attract a diverse array of students from different medical institutions.

b.) ‘Welcome to medicine’ annual GMC publication which all medical students received upon entering medical school. The 2017 ‘Welcome to medicine’ is currently in preparation and DIMAH topics and issues can be added to this publication.

c.) ‘GMC News for Students’ is an online-engagement platform to inform medical students of upcoming news and events, for those who have a registered account.

d.) ‘Student voices groups’: One or two medical students are chosen to represent each medical school relaying key concerns, issues and ideas to health regulatory bodies. The GMC is hosting ‘round-tables’ with students this coming September/ October 2017 to gain their perspectives on new guidance and standards.

e.) ‘Student room’: The GMC appropriately responds to students’ concerns on the student chat-room. It also has a strong online social media presence via Twitter, YouTube and Facebook which are used to post regular updates.

 

2.) Student National Competition on Diversity: Ioanna Maraki and Adrian Barrowdale from the GMC considered a competition a useful way to involve students given their experience in student engagement. It was agreed amongst the DIMAH members present at the meeting to proceed with the following thoughts for consideration and action points below in preparation for organising a Student National Competition on

 

Diversity:

a.) Establish a range of categories students could submit multi-media (i.e. podcasts, videos, posters etc.) pieces on diversity for example as either essays, art, poetry or short reflective pieces to showcase the different perceptions for how the meaning of diversity is understood. The group brainstormed ideas on potential topics for the student competition, and it was decided to focus on the topic ‘why is diversity important for health and social care?’ With potential sub-categories to this question being in patients, peers/ colleagues, education, inter-professionalism and miscellaneous.

b.) DIMAH and the GMC could jointly reward certificates of participation as a reward process for encouraging student engagement into the competition. Appropriate standards for judging criteria, members of the judging panel and guidance on how establish an effective student invitation for the competition was discussed and example guidance will be provided by Ioanna Maraki and Andy Ward.

c.) Different members of each medical institution would have to arrange the administration and practicalities for selecting students and informing of them of the student competition. Helen Orton suggested making the competition open to a range of students from health and social care backgrounds and Ioanna expressed this idea could be raised at the next GMC meeting with various health regulatory bodies in October.

d.) Different members from Cardiff University are willing to share their work on student engagement with the wider DIMAH group such as the report on ‘Race in Medicine’, ‘I am Cardiff’, ‘All that we share’ YouTube video, the ‘Innocent Project’ about social justice and the ‘Train the Trainer’ sessions following the Stonewall Report on LGBT issues.

e.) Consensus was reached on the following decisions regarding the student competition: To open the student competition to the UK only, to any university student, from a variety of health and social care disciplines, allowing for both individual and joint entries and rewarding students with a certificate of participation and selecting a winner and runner-up. In addition to this students entering the competition would be asked to provide feedback on what they are hoping from the DIMAH group in terms of student engagement. It was decided the potential time to launch the competition would be in January 2018 with decisions to be finalised by the October 2017 DIMAH meeting.

f.) It was decided it would be best to run a pilot of the student competition in Cardiff University and the University of Leicester before formally running the national competition, and Helen Orton suggested discussing the possibility of doing this in the University of Liverpool.

 

Action Points

  • Riya George to put Helen Orton in touch with Shuangyu Li, Jon Ward and Candan Ertbery to join in with existing collaborations on inter-professionalism.
  • Helen Orton to formulate a piece on encouraging student engagement across different healthcare disciplines and how to potentially involve health regulatory bodies such as the NMC and HCPC by the next meeting.
  • Ioanna Maraki to raise the idea of a national student competition on diversity at next Health Regulators
  • Meeting, to send existing GMC two-page guidance on student application for the competition as an example and to enquire with GMC media team whether a podcast could be made.Andy Ward to submit examples of judging criteria used in similar work on student engagement with Liz Anderson at the University of Leicester to the DIMAH group.
  • Nisha Dogra, Andy Ward (University of Leicester) Sam Hibbitts, Liz Forty, Dave Wilson (Cardiff University) and Helen Orton to draft a poster for the pilot Student National Competition.
  • Sam Hibbitts, Liz Forty and Dave Wilson to share with the DIMAH group examples of work on student engagement at Cardiff University.

 

Issue of different members chairing the DIMAH meeting: It was agreed the following considerations and changes need to be reviewed about the DIMAH group:

1.) Nisha had offered to rotate the chairing but there were mixed responses, it was suggested after the meeting that a formal DIMAH Board should be established, this may help improve the lack of attendance at DIMAH meetings. It was also noted that DIMAH terms of officers are for a period of three years, therefore new officers are to be re-elected by Year 2018. This is an issue that needs to be formally arranged at the next meeting.

2.) Action points established at the DIMAH meetings are often not implemented, planning and implementation of targets and goals between DIMAH meetings is needed to ensure momentum with explicit ownership and responsibility for different tasks by designated DIMAH members.

3.) Considering ways for web and online access for DIMAH members who are unable to attend, however it was noted this would be feasible if the DIMAH meetings were hosted at a regular venue with the appropriate IT support.

4.) Hosting the DIMAH meeting at a regular venue and location that was easily accessible via public transport and also may enable remote access to meetings, it was suggested either London or Birmingham would be most appropriate if this was considered important. The value of different schools hosting the meeting was also discussed and it was noted this had been the majority preference at previous meeting.

5.) Action points that are contentious, comments should be gained between meetings and then formally discussed when all core DIMAH members are present.

 

Action Points:

  • Riya George to create an online questionnaire to email to all DIMAH members to gain feedback on future changes and suggestions for improvement for DIMAH. All DIMAH members are kindly requested to complete the anonymous online form by the 06th of September 2017. The feedback from DIMAH members will be collated and discussed at the next meeting on the 16th October 2017.
  • It was noted after the meeting, terms for DIMAH Officers are for a period of three years, therefore, nominations for electing/re-electing new officers are to be requested for year 2018. Riya George to send an email to all DIMAH members requesting nominations for DIMAH Officers – Chair, Deputy Chair and Treasurer.

 

Margot Turner’s DIMAH reflection: As Margot Turner was not present for this meeting, the reflections were not discussed but due to be raised at the next DIMAH meeting.

3.) Membership Updates: Pete Leftwick reported via email that at present 64 members have successfully joined DIMAH with a total of £875.00 pounds present in the DIMAH account.

Renewal of DIMAH membership: It was noted that annual renewals for DIMAH memberships are due, with first and second reminders sent to many institutional and individual members to renew their membership receiving little or no response. Pete Leftwick was seeking input from the DIMAH members regarding how long members should be given for renewals of memberships.

Action: It was agreed amongst the members present that no longer than 2 months should be given to renew membership, with two warning reminders before membership is cancelled. It was also suggested by the group encouraging renewal of DIMAH membership should be raised at the next meeting.

Encouraging leadership in diversity: DIMAH Members present discussed the importance of transparent leadership in diversity education and the establishment of diversity leads in each medical school, it was collectively suggested this may encourage renewal of DIMAH membership. Different DIMAH members also suggested contacting different health education bodies such as the Academy of Medical Educators and DEMEC to encourage the inclusion of diversity at their national conferences.

 

Action Points:

  • DIMAH membership renewals to be put on the agenda for the next meeting on the 16th October 2017.
  • Sam Hibbitts, Liz Forty, Dave Wilson and Nisha Dogra to write a draft position paper on the importance of leadership in diversity education by the end of September 2017.
  • Nisha Dogra to contact the Academy of Medical Educators and DEMEC to encourage inclusion of diversity at their next conferences.

4.) Conference Updates:

ASME Conference University of Exeter June 2017:

Margot Turner, Rebecca Farrington and Aarti Bansal successfully facilitated a workshop on how integrate diversity into the medical curriculum.

Riya George was selected as one of the three finalists for Best Original Research Paper Award (BORPA) at ASME and achieved runner-up place.

Riya George presented two abstracts on her PhD research about how to improve and evaluate diversity education in health educational institutions accepted.

Riya George organised a dinner for DIMAH members and those interested in diversity after the ASME conference and this was successful event and it was noted by members this should be arranged again for next year.

Andy Ward presented a poster on integrating diversity into clinical communication at the ASME conference.

 

AMEE Conference Helsinki, Finland August 2017:

Enam Haque has had one abstract accepted on his work on widening participation at the University of Manchester.

Margot Turner will be attending AMEE with medical students at St George’s and will be presenting their work on how to embed diversity into the curriculum.

Riya George has had one abstract accepted on her research about how to improve and evaluate diversity education in health educational institutions accepted.

EACH Summer School 2017

Nisha Dogra and Andy Ward will be facilitating a workshop on how to integrate diversity into the curriculum at the EACH summer school this year.

 

5.) Papers/reports/ disseminations and awards:

Ioanna Maraki informed DIMAH members that the GMC has published new professional guidelines on professional practice which includes aspects of diversity and equality and was asked to circulate this to DIMAH group.

Nisha Dogra and Andy Ward are preparing a paper on the evaluation findings of their induction teaching on diversity and professionalism (part of integrating diversity across the curriculum).

Riya George was awarded the Outstanding Commitment to Professional Development Award and the Teaching Partnership Award, which involved engaging fourth and fifth year medical students in the development of curriculum on diversity education at the University of Leicester.

 

Action Points:

Ioanna Maraki to circulate to GMC new guidance on professionalism and web-links for appropriate GMC resources to the DIMAH group.

 

6.) Liaison with other groups:

Adrian Barrowdale has agreed to accommodate the DIMAH meetings on the 16th October 2017 and 23rd March 2018 at the General Medical Council site in London.

7.) Research updates: Given the paucity and relatively low quality of research present in the field of diversity education, those DIMAH members present agreed a co-ordinated, collaborative and strategic approach to research development needs to be established. In addition, potential source of funding for research projects in diversity needs to be explored, a few suggestions included HEA, MSC and the UKCCC.

 

Action points:

Dave Wilson and Paul Brendon at the University of Cardiff to formulate a research strategy to develop research projects in diversity education for the next DIMAH meeting on the 16th October 2017.

8.) Finances: This item was not discussed due to lack of regular DIMAH members present and is to be raised on the agenda for the next meeting although it was noted that there are low funds. Nisha also reported on the feedback from the GMC that they did not have funding available as such for website maintenance.

9.) Future DIMAH conferences: Different ideas on when, where and what the next DIMAH conference should cover were discussed amongst those present. The following points and decisions were made:

The next DIMAH conference would ideally need to be planned for October or November 2018 at either London or Birmingham as these two locations are easily accessible via different methods of transport. The dates and locations for the next DIMAH conference are to be decided upon via a questionnaire Riya George will develop for DIMAH members to complete by the next meeting.

Potential topics to be addressed at the next DIMAH conference included the following ideas:

a.) Follow up on action points from the previous DIMAH conference in May 2016.

b.) Student perceptions of diversity and student behaviours towards diversity education.

c.) The impact of the hidden or informal curriculum in diversity education.

d.) Leadership in diversity education: barriers and enablers to change.

e.) The difference between good and bad teaching in diversity education.

f.) Faculty management of challenging behaviours and attitudes and advice on how to appropriately respond
to diversity issues.

g.) The impact of kite markers (i.e. Athena Swan) and the messages it conveys about diversity

h.) Inter-professionalism learning and diversity of the workforce.

i.) Diversity education across medical institutions, specifically how many diversity related learning outcomes are included in the curriculum?

Those present discussed the importance of having a reasonable number of workshops (but not too many) and different categories at the conference and using different mediums to present data such as graphic/story boarding facilitators or the use of word clouds.

 

Action points:

  • Riya George to include questions regarding when and where the next DIMAH conference should be held in the questionnaire about future changes and improvements for DIMAH.

10.) Website Development and Improvement Planning: It was originally planned to utilised the CPD session in the afternoon for website development and planning, however as only Nisha and Riya as established DIMAH members were present at the meeting this did not occur. Instead a general discussion on how to improve the DIMAH website was established. The following considerations and actions plans for the website development and improvement were made:

A clearer vision for the purpose of the website needs to be established amongst members, as well a dedicated DIMAH member to be in charge of implementing and monitoring changes on the website together with John Prendergast (website development). The GMC supports the DIMAH work and is happy for their logo to be on the website,

Members discussed the advantages and disadvantages of being hosted by another organisation or being an independent website, and it was decided more ownership and flexibility was possible by being an independent website if funds allowed. We currently spend £1200 on the website and this has been paid to date by Nisha Dogra but it has been agreed that this was not going to continue. Nisha had emailed the GMC and asked if funding to support the website was available and unfortunately it is not.

Discussions on the use of blogs, forums and webinars also occurred however again issues of ownership and practicalities of consistent commitment would need to be addressed. There is also a need to get a more populated website which we have not yet been able to do before more ambitious projects are launched.

 

Action points:

  • Every DIMAH member to create a podcast on ‘best tip’ or a ‘reflection piece’ on how to teach diversity education better from your personal experiences and send this to Enam Haque and John Prendergast to upload on the website by the end of September 2017. The podcast should be no more than 3 minutes. Riya George to discuss different possibilities with John Prendergast regarding changes to the website i.e. using WordPress, Wix etc.

11.) Any other business

DIMAH would like to thank Mrs Sheila Gandhi at the University of Leicester for hosting and arranging the DIMAH meeting.

Upcoming dates for DIMAH twitter chats are on the 10th August 2017 from 18.30pm to 19.30pm and 18th

October from 19.30pm to 20.30pm. Enam Haque has kindly developed a twitter guide for DIMAH members which has been uploaded onto the DIMAH website.

 

12.) Next meetings: The following upcoming dates and venues for the next DIMAH meetings have been arranged as followed below:

16th October 2017: General Medical Council, London from 09.30am – 14.00pm

16th January 2018: University of Leeds from 10.30am – 15.30pm

23rd March 2018: General Medical Council, London from 09.30am – 14.00pm

 

Summary of Action Points:

Action Point  – Person Responsible – Deadline

To formulate a piece on encouraging student engagement across different healthcare disciplines and how to potentially involve health regulatory bodies such as the NMC and HCPC by the next meeting. Helen Orton  16.10.2017

1.) To raise the idea of a national student competition on diversity at next GMC meeting with different health regulatory bodies, to send existing GMC two-page guidance on student application for the competition as an example and to enquire with GMC media team whether a podcast could be made.

2.) To circulate to GMC new guidance on professionalism and web-links for appropriate GMC resources to the DIMAH group. Ioanna Maraki  16.10.2017

To submit examples of judging criteria used in similar work on student engagement with Liz Anderson at the University of Leicester to the DIMAH group. Andy Ward  01.09.2017

To draft a poster for the pilot Student National Competition.  Andy Ward, Nisha Dogra and Helen Orton 16.10.2017

To share with the DIMAH groups examples of work on student engagement at Cardiff University. Sam Hibbitts, Liz Forty and Dave Wilson 16.10.2017

To create an online questionnaire to email to all DIMAH members to gain feedback on future changes and suggestions for improvement for DIMAH. Riya George  20.07.2017

To write a position paper on the importance of leadership in diversity education Sam Hibbitts, Liz Forty, Dave Wilson and Nisha Dogra 30.09.2017

To contact the Academy of Medical Educators and DEMEC to encourage inclusion of diversity in their national conferences Nisha Dogra  16.10.2017

To formulate a research strategy to develop research projects in diversity education. Dave Wilson and Paul Brendon 16.10.2017

Every DIMAH member to create a podcast on ‘best tip’ or a ‘reflection piece’ on how to teach diversity education better from your personal experiences All DIMAH members  16.10.2017