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ME4019 Mental Health - Block 2, Aberdeen (2026 - 2027)

Schedule Comments Summary (optional)

What helped you to feel welcome?

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Week of lectures before starting placements, friendly staff at Cornhill
Everyone in the psychiatry team were welcoming and provided good support for learning
Good welcome week with lectures
Did not feel welcome. My supervisors made small amounts of contact. There was little induction to my main general adult ward.
The consultants were really lovely and made me feel welcome and appreciated.
My supervisor (Dr Beasom) was very welcoming and was there to support me throught my placement
the introduction lectures and even when arriving at the ward, the team members seemed to have a positive and welcoming attitude towards medical students
The week of lectures before the placements started were great at getting us prepared, we are very grateful to the clinicians who gave their time to teach and prepare us. The consultants on placement were also very friendly and keen on teaching, and were happy to have us with them.
The consultants and specialty doctors that are integrated in to university teaching were excellent

Comment on your interaction with patients on this block

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Multiple chances to talk to patients at the inpatient wards, and able to see consultations at outpatient clinics Attended CMHT meetings and shadowed a domiciliary visit, as well as seeing an ECT session
It was mostly observation. I only properly spoke to 2 patients the entire time.
It was very useful to practice my history skills with mentally ill patients as you had to adjust communication styles and taught me how to take a thorough history including risk assessment
Was able to talk to a range of patients with supervision
Good interaction with patients, albeit not as much as could have been. However, all ePortfolio requirements completed. And good experience with patients gained.
I had the opportunity to go to wards by myself and interview patients which i really appreciated as it made me become more independent of my learning. I enjoyed talking to the patients, especially the older adults as they were more keen for me to learn.
the interaction with patients was okay, however, due to the nature of psych a lot of patients did not feel comfortable with a medical student sitting in for appointments.
Patients didn't really want to speak to medical students - especially general adults. I was able to shadow but struggled more finding patrients willing to speak to me
a managed to take histories of patients presenting with a variety of psychiatric conditions That supported my learning quite a bit, as I would look out for sign and symptoms that the individual patients were displaying and how that lines up with the presenting complain that the came in with
Not enough despite best efforts - interactions with patients were generally unsupervised giving little feedback availability

As this block contains different specialties, please make it clear in your comments which specialty you are referring to. Please note any particularly good educational experiences and state why:

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Good chances to see multiple patients on the Old Age, General Adult and Rehab wards at Cornhill
Unscheduled care was the best experience and I would have happily done a week or more there.
Mostly in adult clinics with Dr Cassidy we’re good at consolidating knowledge
Good experience in older adult psychiatry; Dr Dreaver made us feel very welcome and had plenty of opportunities for us to get clinical experience.
Drugs and alcohol services - was good and go good clinical exposure. Struggled to find CMHT shadowing though
Old age psychiatry, Adult general psychiatry
Dr Ajayi was really great at providing us with opportunities, and he was very happy to have us with him. He was very welcoming and taught us a lot in any free time he’d have, he provided us with a week plan and was prepared with lots of opportunities to offer us. He also offered to assess us for our MiniCex which was really nice of him as he was quite busy. He’d invite us to sit in at his outpatient clinics, guided us to teaching that was happening and invited us to join MDTs and ward rounds with him. We really appreciated having him and we hope you can pass this on to him.

Please suggest any improvements to this educational experience.

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Dr Kini was quite checked out and I'm worried about her because she doesn't seem very happy. She was complaining that most of her workload is ADHD and she wasn't really engaged or interested in teaching us. I didn't feel comfortable raising this concern with Dr Badial directly because I don't really want to single her out.
Keep the 1st week as lectures, it was incredibly helpful as a reminder and to settle in. I wish the other blocks did this too.
More scheduled clinics
Timetable the sessions as with other blocks.
N/A
drugs and alcohol services is quiet sub-sepcialised to have for 2 weeks - maybe 1 week
Better communication - if staff is going to be on annual leave, there is no point shadowing them/their juniors during the week that they are off, so might be better to arrange an alternative consultant for that week
The consultants that did not respond to emails made SDS very difficult
- structuring the block - allowing choice between wards - supervisors being more present

Would you like to tell us more about the concern related to discrimination, bullying and harassment?

(500) No comments.

We wish to recognise those who have excelled in your learning experience, e.g. quality of teaching, student support. Staff may be based in the University or the NHS. If you wish to nominate any member(s) of staff, please do so and state: 1. Who they are 2. Where they work 3. Why you have nominated them.

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Dr Ifedayo Ajayi, Consultant on Fyvie Ward at Royal Cornhill Hospital, for allowing us to shadow him for the majority of his consultations and ward rounds during our time on the General Adult Psychiatry wards, as well as teaching us and allowing us multiple chances to ask him questions and discuss patients.
Dr Innes from old age psychiatry was friendly, welcoming and took time to teach. Dr Pearl (I can't remember her surname) core trainee was also very friendly and welcoming in the unscheduled care. She genuinely made me feel like part of the team there, while everywhere else I felt like "just a med student". I don't know her name, but there was a very friendly phlebotomist lady who was so helpful when I was finding out how to sign up to observe ECT. She works in the clozapine clinic.
Dr Sean Cassidy and Dr Nadia Sivaswamy Adult psych and CAMHS Very open doctors and allowed me to take histories in clinic
n general adult (Fyvie), Dr. Ifeyado Ajayi made me feel really welcomed into the block. He was always open to discuss conditions and things that I was not too sure of, so it really helped clarify my doubts and strenghten my understanding of certain concepts. In Substance Misuse, Dr. Sam Wilson was so great. He went through the Mental State Examinations with me, supervised me and really made sure I fully understood how to do it properly.
Dr Louise Foubister, CAMHS. She was a fantastic teacher, and I learned most on my week shadowing her. Thank you
Dr Nicoletta Clementi, outpatients General Adult psychiatry. she was very helpful and would always explain the patients that we are about to see to me beforehand. That help give me some background and enable to follow the consultation better. She always gave me the opportunity (with the patient's permission) to ask the patient a question at the end of the consultation.
Dr Kirk, Dr Onder, Dr Casserly, Dr Omosigho, Dr Contrero and Dr Clementi and Connor the GP trainer and FY's on placement were super helpful at providing learning opportunities on placement.