Celebrating Success

Our Educators regularly receive recognition from a host of institutions for their ground-breaking educational research and professional achievements.

Share your success story

Have you recently received news of an award or position which you would like to share with our Clinical Educators? Get in touch to be featured on this page.

November 2021 - James Young gains fellowship of the Higher Education Academy

Dr James Young

The Fellowship of Advanced Higher Education (FHEA) programme has been a positive and extremely valuable experience for me. I had considered applying after my Post Graduate Certificate in Medical Education in 2019; however, I had originally declined the option to apply for Fellowship as part of my PGCE course. At the time I was preparing to return to clinical practice, after working as one of the School Medical Education Fellows and we were expecting our first child. Instead, I wanted to focus on what I had gained from the PGCE, my clinical work and surviving sleep deprivation!

Fast forward a couple of years and, with additional experience in my current role as a MBChB Clinical Teacher and a qualified GP, I knew that I was in the right position to reflect critically on my teaching experience and my everyday educational practice. Was I employing what I had learnt? Was I keeping up to date and adapting my teaching as a result?

By enrolling on The Academy’s ULTRA course at the University of Liverpool, I was provided with a flexible online pathway and allocated an experienced mentor. Many clinical colleagues will be familiar with mapping and this is a key part of the process. It is coupled with a reflective and pedagogical mindset by highlighting your good practice and your development in teaching activity, core knowledge and professional values. Just as we stay up to date clinically, the same should be engrained within our teaching. Being actively engaged in the literature has encouraged me to stay relevant in order to optimise student impact.

The flexibility within the course was crucial, as increasing demands due to covid-19 pandemic affected my progress. Therefore, by allocating some time over the University’s summer break, I benefited from the opportunity to review literature and also my previous work. Access to a supportive mentor from outside the School provided me an informative and alternative perspective on higher education, key guidance on mapping and advice about how to engage and draw upon experience to formulate my application.

I would thoroughly recommend the Fellowship application. It was an enjoyable and reflective learning experience; it consolidated and acknowledged my strengths in delivery and feedback. It has helped me maintain a high level of teaching practice, inspired me to stay up to date and consider possible research areas, whilst also identifying where my development may need to be in the coming years. I would certainly recommend this programme to others, including clinical colleagues, as a worthwhile opportunity to focus on how you teach, engage, evaluate and inspire future students.

Back to: School of Medicine