Dean's Update | May 2023
Sequins, success, sunshine, and seagulls. This May in the School has been buzzing! From the glitz of Eurovision to the many students I had the pleasure of seeing winning recognition for their achievements at the University Guild Awards, or who have won prizes for presentations at national conferences.
In addition, this month’s Mental Health awareness theme has been a good context for us all to prioritise our wellbeing, and it has been great to see our ‘Garden of Health’ finally coming into its own this year post pandemic, as a backdrop for quiet reflection, sun-drenched chat between teaching sessions and ice-cream enhanced ‘wellbeing wonderlands’. The safe space has also been approved by the local wildlife who are nesting on the roof.
This time of year also brings the opportunity to demonstrate all the new knowledge and skills you have been steadily acquiring this year, and to thank all those working behind the scenes at your placements to ensure, despite the impact of the pandemic and strikes on clinical service, that you can have a strong foundation for your future clinical practice, through excellent and varied clinical contact and through local adaptations made in response to your end of block feedback.
Especially at such of time of upheaval in the NHS, a little thanks goes a very long way. Help us encourage them by taking a minute to recognise those who have made a difference this year.
Undergraduate Team at WUTH
It is also a time to look to the future and to consider the specialties that could interest you and how to prepare for these. We continue to anticipate a potential change in the FPAS allocation scheme and look forward to an announcement from UKFPO soon.
As I shared previously, the ‘decile’ calculated by the School has only counted for 9% of the FPAS score to date.Therefore, the difference that any one exam brings is minimal and there a whole range of other, better ways to enhance your future training applications. Deciles are not the reason to be twitchy about any exam.
I hope you will all trust in the work you have already done, the placement time you have already put in, and make time for some sunshine, amidst the study.