A major challenge I faced when first teaching and convening the Clinical Skills (CS) sessions in Phase 1 of the medical program was engaging and managing up to 30 students per class, and, from the perspective of Convenor, for multiple sessions thereof (it takes 20 sessions across a fortnight to teach every student in the Phase in a skills session). To meet this challenge, I introduced near-peer learning as a support. This process has developed and matured since then such that I now recruit and train dozens of senior medical students to assist in sessions when junior students interact with Simulated Patients (SPs). This provides a multi-tiered educational team comprising demonstrator students, an administration assistant, clinical tutors who deliver my Clinical Skills curriculum across three campuses, and an Simulated Patient bank of >100 volunteers. As Convenor, I make myself available to all of these important contributors to the teaching effort to address specific concerns and critical incidents, as well as providing ‘just in time’ mentoring around teaching, student engagement and ensuring appropriate simulated ‘patient behaviour’ for the SPs. Through Teams, I also liaise with every member of staff associated with delivery of CS teaching activities in the five metropolitan clinical schools and five rural clinical schools across the state to which UNSW students are assigned.

Thus, with a remit that extends across the entire six-year program, I engage, support, advise and interact with dozens of administrative staff and hundreds of academic, conjoint and clinical staff who deliver clinical skills education throughout the program – all of whom are using my teaching guides, applications (e.g. CWAapp, but also a clinical examination application, the Observational Assessment application (OAapp)) and other materials – across all the multiple hospital and campus sites where UNSW medical students are learning. Beyond the physical resources are the support structures I have put in place (online, as well as effective use of governance committees), such that these varied and distributed staff know where to find relevant information (documents, video resources, online activities etc.), and/or other support people to talk to in order to become confident regarding the most appropriate approach to CS teaching. With these systems in place, I welcome feedback and change my practice in response to it. As well as electronic means to receive feedback (e.g. Teams), I conduct face-to-face meetings both on a regular and ad hoc basis throughout the teaching year, and travel to campuses across the state to enage with staff and address their issues and concerns.