How can you get involved in Elective supervision?
Considering the wide range of projects, there are various options for how you can become involved in elective supervision. The options are as follows:
Supervision (home supervisor for project outside WMS/NHS partner)
Students may arrange a placement internationally, or somewhere else in the UK. They will have a location supervisor for the placement. Your main task will be to support students when they prepare for the elective, discuss health and safety issues, and have a debrief meeting with the student. If you wish, you can indicate which location(s) and/or clinical areas you would be particularly interested in.
Guided elective
This type of elective is more supervisor-led and would involve a series of regular sessions, e.g. one session per week, on a particular topic. The supervisor would meet the students as a group for topic-related activities and provide guidance on how students pursue their self-directed study between sessions. You should indicate the topic of the elective, e.g. medical humanities, and how sessions will run.
Placement
You may wish to offer a placement, which may be clinical, e.g. a placement in a clinical specialty in a hospital or a GP placement, or non-clinical, e.g. a placement in medical education. The duration of a placement should be at least 2 weeks. You should indicate location and clinical area of the placement. You may also give the dates of the placement if you are not available for the whole time.
Desk-based project
You, or the student, may have some idea for a project that involves desk-based study in a field of healthcare and can be done locally. You should provide some further details on the project, e.g. topic, activities, or, if you don’t have a particular project in mind, just indicate which topics you would be particularly interested in.
Formal enquiry project
You may have got a specific research, audit or service evaluation project in mind. Here it is important to consider that students will need to apply for BSREC approval if the project involves human participants, their tissue, and/or their data and submit a study protocol with the elective proposal. You should provide some further details on the project, e.g. topic, aim and methods.
Other
You may have a specific project in mind, which does not fit neatly into these categories, as it may involve a combination of activities. You should provide some further details of the project, e.g. topic, activities.
