Five UCD medical students were delighted to present their work on the topic of "Peer Assisted Learning in Action" to the Irish Clinician Educator Training Programme (ICET) workshop in March 2025. Peter Burke (GEM 2), Nicholas Sanfey (GEM 2), Monjori Mukerjee (GEM 4), Kerrie Drum (GEM 4) and Stephen Connor (UEM 6) worked with Dr Shahad Al-Tikriti (Advanced Medical Education Fellow in the National Maternity Hospital and MD candidate in UCD) and Associate Professor Mary Higgins (UCD Obstetrics and Gynaecology/National Maternity Hospital (NMH)) to co-design and facilitate a workshop on "Peer Assisted Learning in Action".
Peter and Nicholas, as co-chairs of the UCD Emergency Medicine Society introduced the concepts of peer assisted learning in student societies. Monjori spoke on the student-led "Sim Sessions" for pre-clinical medical students and Stephen described "SimWars" which UCD are very proud to have won in 2024. Kerrie spoke about "Obs night" which is a twice yearly teaching by students of obstetric emergencies, supported by UCD Obstetrics and Gynaecology staff. Mary Higgins spoke about formalising training in Peer Assisted Learning, describing electives in medical education and peer assisted learning where students have co-designed books, posters, podcasts, practice assessments and videos of practical training. Finally Shahad spoke about Peer Assisted learning in multidisciplinary training in hospitals, including major simulations in the National Maternity Hospital and in St Vincents University Hospital emergency and operating theatre departments in conjunction with the NMH.
The Irish Clinician Educator Training (ICET) programme is an innovative, advanced, educational pathway in the field of Postgraduate Clinical Education. It is a two year National Programme developed to provide training in Postgraduate Clinical Education and it is open to Specialist Registrars who can undertake it as Out of Clinical Programme Experience. The aim of the programme is to support the training and professional development of the future leaders in Postgraduate Clinical Education in Ireland. Clare Kennedy, UCD tutor in the National Maternity Hospital, was one of two fellows in the first year of ICET. Perhaps some of the UCD students who facilitated the programme will be future ICET fellows and then become leaders in medical education.