TCELT Research Seminar

Dr Cate Kennedy is a Lecturer in Medical Education at the University of Dundee. Her professional background is in sociology, and she has conducted research on a diverse range of topics including women’s health, homelessness, multi-agency working, professional identity. Common threads within this research have been experiences of inequity and in/exclusion, and of personal and professional transitions across the life course.

Across their educational trajectories, medical students experience multiple significant transitions in their learning, from first entering undergraduate medical studies, moving to work-based clinical learning, then postgraduate training and the world of work. These transitions can be experienced as stressful for some but can also be seen as positive opportunities for intensive learning (Gordon et al., 2017; Denovan & Macaskill, 2013; Kilminster et al., 2011). When stressful, if not well supported, these experiences can affect student wellbeing negatively (Jindal-Snape & Rientes, 2016). Transitions may be experienced in different ways by medical students from an increasingly diverse range of groups, such as students from non-traditional backgrounds, international students, or mature students returning to education (Jindal-Snape & Rientes, 2016). In this seminar I will present the findings of interview research exploring the diverse stories of medical students that have experienced a range of transitions at medical school. The research was conducted in the summer of 2021 following a year of disrupted teaching due to COVID-19, so the additional experience of changes in teaching and learning will also be examined. I will review how participants responded to these experiences, whether positive or challenging, and any advice they may have for others that may be undergoing similar experiences of transitions.