Aim

The Student Selected Clinical Placement (SSCP) in Year 3 of the MBChB Programme enables you to explore areas of Medicine of particular interest to you. This is an opportunity for you to immerse yourself fully into a given speciality with a view to informing future career decisions.

Overall Objectives

Enable students to:

• Extend the breadth and depth of your education from personally defined objectives.
• Acquire in depth knowledge and skills about a clinical speciality or aspect of medical practice.
• Focus on the long-term intellectual and attitudinal demands of professional life as a doctor.
• Have clinical experiences that may support future career choices.
• Question and critique your experiences through reflection.
• Communicate clearly through written reports.

Intended Learning Outcomes

By the end of the SSCP you should be able to:

1. Explain your reason for choosing the SSCP;
2. Demonstrate that your specific objectives for the placement were achieved;
3. Produce a report in the form of a short reflective piece that:
   • Describes how these objectives have been met;
   • demonstrates reflection on learning during the placement, including how you worked with all health care professionals;
   • describes how the experience informs your potential career options.

Setting Personal Learning Objectives

In discussion with your SSCP supervisor, you must set some specific learning objectives. You should spend some time thinking about what objectives to set and whether they are achievable in that setting in the 3-week time period. The main mistake made when setting objectives is to make them too vague and therefore difficult to demonstrate achievement. Remember to keep your objectives SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Time-bound).

Some good examples are:

• Increasing your awareness of the provision and delivery of healthcare in the chosen clinical area by shadowing an NHS manager for a day.
• Increasing your knowledge and understanding of disease and its management, including public health aspects, prevention, epidemiology and aspects of clinical management by presenting a case to my supervising consultant and/or the clinical team.
• To learn, practice and become proficient in intubation (during an Anaesthetics SSCP).
• Explore future trends and working patterns in the speciality by discussing with resident doctors in training.
• Create opportunities, where possible, for improving your CV (e.g. by completing an audit or case report).
• Working with the clinical team to be able to understand the roles of other health care professionals in the multidisciplinary team (MDT) (e.g. in an oncology SSCP) by presenting patients at the MDT meetings.
• Identify and explore aspects of the clinical speciality to help determine your future career choices by immersing yourself in all the activities within the SSCP (e.g. theatre, meetings, continuing professional development (CPD) activities of trainee resident doctors, outpatient clinics, ward rounds).

Assessment of SSCP

Satisfactory completion of your SSCP will require evidence of a satisfactory grade for the placement. Supervisors will be asked to complete the SSCP clinical placement e-form on your iPad and make an assessment based on the following:

1. Attendance It is a requirement of the programme that you are in Manchester and on placement for 100% of your SSCP. Expected attendance is 100% and your supervisor will confirm this through the SSCP placement sign off e-form. If you fail to attend without a valid reason you will be referred to your Clinical Education Campus (CEC) Year Lead to discuss your non-attendance. This may result in a referral to the Concerns Review Panel if concerns about your professionalism are raised in this meeting.
2. Work Habits and Performance
   It is good practice for you to review how you are doing with your supervisor regularly throughout your placement. You must meet with your supervisor (or a suitable deputy in their absence) in the last week of the placement for an appraisal and assessment of how far you have achieved the agreed objectives. You will be required to provide evidence of how these objectives were met as outlined in the SSCP placement sign off e-form. The supervisor will inform the respective CEC Year Lead early on if there are concerns about your attendance, attitude or behaviour so that attempts may be made to remedy the situation before the end of the SSCP.
3. Report
   You will be required to complete a 300-word reflective report within the SSCP placement sign off e-form. Your placement supervisor will review this, along with the above criteria, in order determine a satisfactory pass.

Unsatisfactory Placement

Students who receive an unsatisfactory grade for their SSCP (if not already allocated this placement because of failure to pass their Clinical Placement Blocks) will be required to re-sit the SSCP during the summer break between Years 3 and 4 in order to progress to year 4.

Students who receive an unsatisfactory grade in their SSCP and were allocated this placement as a consequence of failure of their previous clinical placement blocks or non-completion of the required UPSAs and PMS skills will have been deemed to fail their Year 3 clinical placement blocks overall, and will be required to re-sit Year 3 with assessment and placement attempts in line with the assessment conditions detailed on the Year 3 Progression Page.

Note: Mitigating circumstances can be applied for a block failure. If accepted they will not change the outcome of that placement nor educational requirements to remediate, but it will determine whether Clinical Placements in a repeat year will be at first or second attempt. For details of how this is applied please visit the Year 3 Progression Page.

Selecting your SSCP: Range and Choice

Students who have satisfactorily passed their clinical placements overall, will be able to state a preference for their choice of a placement for their SSCP. Students who have not met these requirements will instead be required to complete a suitable clinical placement during their SSCP, as discussed with and allocated to them by their CEC Year Lead to support their educational needs.

Your SSCP must be undertaken within the geographical area covered by the MBChB Programme and its NHS Clinical Education Providers (CEPs). This can include District General Hospitals, Primary Care Centres and the communities linked to our four CECs.

Please note SSCPs cannot be undertaken, under any circumstance, outside the Programme and its approved Clinical Education Providers. There is virtually no topic which cannot be pursued in Manchester, other than obscure or highly specialised areas that are more relevant at postgraduate level. For example, spending time working in a mountain rescue team is not an appropriate introduction to medicine in the community and is something that would be more appropriate in the Elective period.

Selection – Allocation

A list of SSCP placements will be made available to you for consideration during the year. You will be asked to mark a number of possible preferences from the availability list before the announced cut-off date. After that date, the preferences  will be processed so that each student is allocated one of their chosen SSCPs. Every attempt will be made to accommodate your choice with the SSCPs available and within the logistics of delivering SSCPs.

Please note, whilst the vast majority of students get allocated one of their choices, this is not always possible. In these circumstances, your CEC team will assist you in finding a suitable alternative SSCP.

Self-arrangement

Rarely you may identify potential SSCPs with learning opportunities not offered in the options within your CEC. In this situation there is the option to self-arrange an SSCP outside your CEC and you should discuss this with your CEC Year Lead. They will ensure it meets the requirements of the SSCP and that the placement supervisor is suitably supported to ensure your experience is appropriate.

Please note that wanting to learn about a highly specialised field of medicine will not be considered a valid reason for self-arranging outside of your Clinical Education Campus. Your Elective period in Year 4 will afford this opportunity.

You may also self-arrange within your own CEC if you wish to do so, but this must not be with a supervisor who is already offering a placement through the selection-allocation system.

If you are self-arranging your placement, you will need to complete a self-arranged SSCP form by the deadline date for submission, which will be announced and fixed. Therefore, make contact early with potential supervisors and confirm their availability and willingness to supervise you in order to avoid delay and disappointment.

SSCP Placement Confirmation

When your SSCP is confirmed, you will be responsible for contacting your supervisor at least two weeks before the start and arranging to meet them on the first day of the placement so that your supervisor may be able to help you in setting appropriate objectives.

SSCP Supervisors

Your supervisor will be an approved provider of clinical placements based at a site attached to the Manchester MBChB Programme and its Clinical Education Providers. They will be a Consultant, Non-consultant Career Grade, or General Practitioner. Specialist Trainees, Research Fellows, nurses and family members are not allowed to supervise.

The supervisor must meet with the you for an initial and end of placement review. At the initial meeting you and your supervisor should create a timetable that aligns with your personal learning objectives. All meetings are to be recorded in the clinical placement e-form on your iPad.

Supervisors are required to be present for a minimum of 80% of the duration of the SSCP. If there is an unavoidable need for the supervisor to be away there must be a nominated deputy supervisor available to supervise the SSCP in their place. If you have a concern about this please contact your CEC Year Lead.

Supervisors are encouraged to help students:

• Think in broad terms about developing their understanding and attitudes as a medical professional;
• think how their learning objectives could reasonably contribute to developing their moral reasoning and medical understanding
• expand learning outside the core curriculum;
• critique their SSCP experience as a potential career option.