MEETING OF SGSU SENATE
MINUTES
28/02/17
5.30pm – H2.6
- APOLOGIES
SM / Shehroz Mahmood / BMS Y3 Rep
JS / Jinnie Shin / T Year Rep
SSh / Sagar Sharma / P Year Rep
AG / Aimen Gmati / P Year Rep
HE / Hannah Edigin / BMS Y3 Rep
IK / Ian King / FdSC Y2 Rep
AR / Allison Ryan / T Year Rep
ND / Naimh Dillane / Physio Y1 Rep
FA / Fahd Arif / BMS Y3 Rep
SZ / Saad Zangie / P Year Rep
- PRESENT
KT / Kat Telford / Chair
FH / Francesca Harris / General Secretary
TA / Tanisha Amin / VP Education and Welfare
AOB / Aileen O’Brien / Dean for Students
PN / Penny Nield / P Year Lead
SSt / Solomon Stott / Paramedic Y1 Rep
AAh / Ali Ahmed / MBBS5 Y1 Rep
AS / Aditya Subba / MBBS5 Y1 Rep
CT / Cathy Tojo / HCS Y1 Rep
RR / Rowan Rai / HCS Y1 Rep
BT / Blessy Thomas / BMS Y1 Rep
NB / Naomi Bartholomew / BMS Y1 Rep
SK / Soniya Kamalraj / HCS Y2 Rep
JPT / Jewelle Petu-Stiles / HCS Y2 Rep
SSi / Sunil Singh / Representation Officer
GBa / Gabriela Barzyk / Representation Officer
AD / Aleena Dhanji / iBSc Rep
AE / Abiramy Eswaravel / iBSc Rep
JH / Johnathan Hirniak / MBBS5 Y2 Rep
SB / Sam Brown / MBBS5 Y2 Rep
PS / Paramita Saraswati / MBBS6 Y2 Rep
AAl / Ahmad Almohtadi / MBBS6 Y2 Rep
MV / Maariyah Vankaad / BMS Y2 Rep
MK / Majeed Kamangar / BMS Y2 Rep
LM / Lizzy Macauley / BMS MSci Y3 Rep
MA / Mary Adesina / BMS MSci Y3 Rep
GL / Gabriella Littler / T Year Rep
IG / Isabel Griffiths / T Year Rep
SB / Seher Bashir / P Year Rep
GBu / Greta Bucinskaite / BMS MSci Y4 Rep
SM / Shuji Mitsuhashi / MBBS4 Y1 Rep
SN / Sophie Nicholls / HCS Y3 Rep
CM / Cassie Mcdonald / F Year Rep
CG / Caitriona Grace / F Year Rep
CC / Charlie Corfield / HCS Y3 Rep
MD / Mustafa Dashti / Community Projects Officer
LC / Lucy Causton / PA Y1 Rep
- MINUTESfrom the last meeting were PASSED.
- ACTIONS FROM LAST MEETING
MBBS6 Y2 / Meet with Kashyap about Fresher welcome talk and Gabby about mapping document / COMPLETE
MBBS5 Y2 / Send email to course team regarding the OSCE feedback, and CC Corey and Tanisha / ONGOING
MBBS5 Y2 / Meet with Matt Szarko / ONGOING
P Year / Contact Dean Surtees about holding session regarding management of electives for P/F years / COMPLETE
F Year / Meet with Ishaan regarding deposits for Grad Ball / COMPLETE
F Year / Get in contact with BMS Y3 about Grad Ball / ONGOING
HCS Y1 / Talk to Tanisha about concerns with equipment and who to contact / ONGOING
MBBS4 Y1 / Liaise with Sam and Johnathan about medic hoodies / ONGOING
Rep Officers / Bring ideas and solutions to next meeting regarding steering group discussion / COMPLETE
Tanisha / Put link on senate group for May Ball / ONGOING
ALL / Add Tanisha to Facebook groups / ONGOING
ALL / Promote Mental Health week / ONGOING
ALL / Promote steering group / COMPLETE
BMS Y2 / Meet with Corey – respond to email to arrange a date / ONGOING
BMS MSci Y4 / Inform senate on response of graduation / COMPLETE
Tanisha / Talk to library about recorders / ONGOING
Paramedic Y1 / Meet with Communications Officers to talk about putting timetable on the app. / ONGOING
Paramedic Y1 / Forward email about course meeting to Tanisha / COMPLETE
P Year / Send details of next course committee meeting to T year reps / ONGOING
Tanisha / Check P year SLS booking in April / COMPLETE
ALL interested / Get in contact with Tanisha about re-validation panel / ONGOING
ALL / Send and ideas for changes to senate to Tanisha, or bring to next meeting / ONGOING
Fran / Put base rooms agenda point into SGM / COMPLETE
Tanisha / Meet with library/security/room booking about base rooms contract / ONGOING
ALL / Put polls onto facebook about base rooms contract / ONGOING
Tanisha / Contact Helen Williams or Jude O’Brien about whether reimbursement applied to paramedics / ONGOING
Kat / Send link to everyone for the form of applying for reimbursement for placement travel expenses / ONGOING
- REPORTS
Top 4 / TA gave a verbal summary of the written report. / PASSED
Representation Officers / SSi gave a verbal summary of the written report. / PASSED
BMS Year 1 / NB gave a verbal summary of the written report.
GB: we had the same problem with the practical last year, so if you collect names and then email Dr Norttroft he should be able to help sort it out. / PASSED
BMS Year 2 / MV gave a verbal summary of the written report. / PASSED
BMS Year 3 / No one present to give a verbal summary of the written report.
TA: how much interest have you had in yearbooks, how many do you need to sell in terms of finances? / PASSED
BMS Year 3 MSci / AD gave a verbal summary of the written report.
TA: at last biomed committee meeting was brought up that attendance has been really bad, could you make another point of this to your cohort, especially now that dissertation is over. These are the best lectures of the biomed course. / PASSED
BMS Year 4 MSci / MA and LM gave a verbal summary of the written report.
AP contact Eurasmus student issues / PASSED
iBSc / GB gave a verbal summary of the written report.
TA: research methods assignment, some people has questions about the marking of it, is this resolved?
GB: Our research proposals were to be assessed by the person in charge of that field and so there was some discrepancy between the marking and there was question over how each academic sees the work meaning the marking was very subjective. Don’t think that it’s completely fair but next year suggest of people to stick very close to the guidelines given.
MA: what is work count for dissertation
GB: 15,000-25,000 words / PASSED
HCS Y1 / Gave verbal summary of written report. / PASSED
HCS Y2 / SK and JPS gave a verbal summary of the written report. / PASSED
HCS Y3 / SN gave a verbal summary of the written report.
AP contact course committee about late result release day.
AP Tanisha to come to meeting with course director about dissertation timeline.
Ian: does the university have a policy for results timeline?
TA: there’s a marking policy which I will find out and get back to you
TA: check this and get back to senate / PASSED
Physio Y1 / No one present to give a verbal report and no report submitted. / Not Passed
Physio Y2 / No one present to give a verbal report and no report submitted. / Not passed
Paramedic Y1 / SSt gave a verbal summary of the written report. / PASSED
FdSC Y2 / No one present to give a verbal summary of the written report. / PASSED
MBBS 6 Y1 / No one present to give a verbal report and no report submitted. / -
MBBS 5 Y1 / AA gave a verbal summary of the written report.
TA: who were the lecturers who wouldn’t record?
AA: Dr Baker
AOB: what was his answer for why
AA: said he would start to but then had a lecture on Friday and there was still no recording
GL: had same DR demonstrator issues in T year and think its due to changes in how the recruit demonstrators and I was thinking about setting up a meeting between reps to discuss this issue and see what we can do about it.
AP Tanisha to contact reps about this – MBBS, BMS / PASSED
MBBS 4 Y1 / SM gave a verbal report.
TA: what was the solution for DR that you agreed on?
SJ: to stop making it demonstrator dependent and more group activity, for example Carter will give 30 minutes of a mini lecture in a clinical skills style, then we go into groups and demonstrators circulate round and see if we are learning well. At the moment the cadavers are a wasted resource. Carter liked this but didn’t do it.
GL: this is something Szarko did at the end for us which we liked but second years really didn’t like it so this might be why it hasn’t been implemented.
TA: Kaplan – is this you specifically liaising?
SM: the into program are doing it / PASSED
MBBS 6 Y2 / PS gave a verbal summary of the written report.
MD: what is your opinion on the George’s response to the GMC report?
AA: report was positive but didn’t include any proper changes they would do except recruiting some admins to the program but this isn’t going to solve anything.
TA: the response that was put on Moodle wasn’t the full response, we had to address many issues raised by the GMC. That response was sent out and GMC responded saying they likes some of the changes we’d made but they haven’t replied again since then as we haven’t currently got any timelines etc.
AA: there is no communication between into which is the worst thing. We are doing their job technically with what is happening with the course communicating to the first year. / PASSED
MBBS 5Y2 / JH gave a verbal summary of the written report.
AP see Communications Officers about a permanent SGSU Snapchat filter / PASSED
T Year / GL gave a verbal report: T year ball, meeting about feedback from t year anatomy etc and letting students know about this, organized clinical skills revision sessions, trained in Panopto, some lecturers playing videos of patients which causes issues with Panopto but other than that pleased with it, raised an issue with noise in the library, peer tutoring scheme, thinking of ways to improve attendance.
TA: the library have put in a bid for some money to move the doors so that the sound from SLS and out the front should no longer move in so this should hopefully help. / PASSED
P Year / SB gave a verbal summary of the written report. / PASSED
F year / CG gave a verbal summary of the written report. / PASSED
PA reps / Came to Tanisha’s attention, been hidden from union previously. Licensing for our exam is £500 and we have to pay despite being told it was free previously and now we don’t have to pay having had help from Tanisha.
We haven’t heard about Panopto before.
Some people have had issues with students being a bit too par away and accommodation not free for us which has been a huge expense for students with major consequences. / PASSED
- AGENDA POINTS
- “Ask Aileen”
AOB: We want to make communication as good as it can be between staff and students. We meet weekly and Tanisha is the link between senate and the university but we thought that it might be helpful for me to come and answer any questions you might have.
TA: MBBS students ask why they can’t choose where they go on placement if they live close by, save NHS money etc?
AOB: this has been a long standing issue, we used to say that if someone had a car and wanted to get into pairs they could go further out, then it seemed that no one had cars. Then what happened was if someone was honest in having a car then they’d get put far away, then it worked two ways that people would say they lived places that they didn’t, and other students felt it was unfair that people got placements just because of their parents when they would have liked it too. It has gone on for so long that we have come to the conclusion that the only fair thing to do was randomise it. It can be looked at again.
SSt: in paramedic course we have a preference system where you rank where you’d like to be placed. They then collated the preferences and tried to make it so that people got their preferences.
CG: we also have a swapping system which is still going but it can be hard to find someone who will swap.
AOB: finding od travel is a big long term issue which is something we also need to keep an eye on
GL: standardisation of teaching on placement. Some places people get incredible teaching and others don’t at all.
AOB: always a challenge, difficult enough to standardise teaching here never mind everywhere else. The placements get money for the students, we have agreements with each placement that they produce a basic standard f quality but what we have to do is try and get feedback which is how we try to monitor it. This can lead to us taking placements away if they are really bad, however this could of course be an issue as we can have a slight shortage of placements.
GL: are they given a list of our LOBs? Seems like some of them know them and others don’t
AOB: they all get them but don’t know whether sent down to all the doctors you spend time with. System is complicated a sin trusts most places have a consultant responsible for organising the teaching in the placements there so can depend on us having good communication with them. Attachment coordinators really do pay attention to the feedback although students probably don’t realise this.
PN: can take students away and its taken very seriously when there is consistently poor feedback. Good feedback is also great to hear, but we specifically really need to know if you’re having issues.
GBa: what does your job entail as we have a lot of new reps here who may not know
AOB: I was a student here and have been a number of roles on the SU Exec including the first Welfare Officer. Trained in psychiatry here, was teaching consultant and have been course leads and tutors. Took over as dean in august. Split my time between here and at Springfield. I have a huge range of things I deal with, student crises, meet with the union, work with counselling and the student psychiatrist, sit on a lot of committees. Overall responsible for welfare but also a big mix as also disciplinary side of things. I’m also the link between you guys and the top team within the university. As dean for students the most frustrating thing I hear is that all the students are really upset about something and they want something done but no one is willing to say any details on this, but it is impossible for me to do anything about it if people wont tell me more. It is really frustrating because we want to be able to make things better and change things, but its really hard. I really want to make it clear that if you ever have something you need to bring to me about a lecturer or consultant etc there really wont be any repercussions from it.
GL: students really don’t believe that they wont be treated differently, maybe if in intro lectures or intro to placement adding this in because as year reps we find it hard to convince them
CG: I had a request form consultant SSC tutor, every tie we have teaching they ask for feedback. Could there be an online process which is standard and we fill it in ourselves, the university gets it and then could be distributed back to the trust.
AOB: would be great in an ideal world but could involve a huge amount of administrative work.
CC: linkedto feedback but specific to our course. Less than 70 of us, every year I give the feedback and they always say its because of not enough money or too small course. People feel like their feedback just isn’t listened to.
AOB: would be helpful to have that feedback with names and specifics via email
MD: students feel issue with communication, why do you think there is a lack of good communication across multiple courses.
AOB: didn’t used to have any internal comms which is now good. They’re going to try and get a member whose job will just be internal student comms. Been too reliant on the year rep system and too much feeling form the staff that because its bene discussed in a committee with a year rep there that it has then been communicated to students but that hasn’t actually happened. Trying to use things like the newsletter. Sometimes a case of just being more honest, very interesting to hear about the into issues, this is a major issue at the moment. There’s a lot of things that we don’t know the answer to with into and sometimes that is the reason that students aren’t being told – because we don’t have the information. People are trying to improve, but I think a lot of it is too much reliance on the rep system
MD: how do you think George’s will improve coms
AOB: this kind of thing, thin the newsletter has been good, good that we are now having more courses with reps and would be really good to hear from you. There’s a culture change with a lot that has built up overthe years and we would like you change this culture and hear about how people want to be communicated with.
SSt: paramedics have had a lot of problems with admissions and these problems are still there.
- P-year 2017/18 update
PN: one of the reasons I’ve been invited is because of the concern in the jump in student numbers in p year for next year. Want to clear it up, some of you may have had some communication about this. Want to share with you what we’ve been doing and take any questions if anything isn’t clear. There has been a big jump because of issues with USplacements. With the restructuring of the T P and F years a few years ago we have got down the numbers, overcrowding has ben an issue for along time. Things have been getting better for the last 3 years but recognise need to address this use for next year. Will be the matter of adding single student numbersonto some firms, exploration of creating new firms and one good thing that’s come out of it is that we are going to have a clinical teaching fellow in neurology which should really improve the experience in neurology as it’s a very tricky placement and we willhave someone who can provide more cohesion in that. Want to make things as smooth as possible. Will also have proper on going funding for cardiac teaching which will then hopefully become more of a robust feature in teaching. Also know there have beensome issues with rooms in the introductory weeks so looking at how we can deliver those more appropriately to peoples styles of learning. Have become more interactive in the introductory weeks and also understand that some students get more out of doing this in their own time and not having to go Monday to Friday 9-5. Discussion over Panopto and looking to introduce something similar so that people have the option of how they like to be taught – face to face or catch up online. Looking to trial it in the last block of the current p year but still discussion on this. Quite a lot that’s happened as a result of the issues.