Undergraduate in psychiatry
With a strong history of working with King’s College London, Kent and Medway medical School (KMMS) and St George’s International School of Medicine in Grenada, Kent and Medway NHS and Social Care Partnership Trust (KMPT) is an excellent choice for undergraduate medical students on their Mental Health placements.
KMPT also look forward to welcoming students from the newly established Kent and Medway Medical School.
Medical Education Team
- Angela Pendleton – Medical Education Manager- angelapendleton@nhs.net
- Shannon Thackaberry – West Kent King’s College London Undergraduate Administrator - shannon.thackaberry@nhs.net
- Debbie Monticolombi – East Kent King’s College London Undergraduate Administrator - debbie.monticolombi@nhs.net
- Katherine Dunning - St Georges International Undergraduate Administrator - katherine.dunning@nhs.net
- Lydia Fry - Kent and Medway medical School Year 3 Undergraduate Administrator - lydia.fry@nhs.net
- Louise Giles - Kent and Medway medical School Year 3 Undergraduate Administrator - louise.giles8@nhs.net
- Melanie Simpson - Medical Education Administrator Kent and Medway medical School Year 5 -melanie.simpson6@nhs.net
Your Placement
KMPT have placements available in general adult, older adult, child & adolescent, intellectual learning disability, forensic or perinatal services.
KMPT also take pride in being able to provide experiences with drug and alcohol dependency services, S136 place of safety, on-call and ECT teams.
Clinical placements will either be with community teams or wards in East Kent (Ashford, Canterbury and Margate) or West Kent (Dartford, Maidstone and Medway).
Accommodation
Note: accommodation only applicable to King’s College London and St Georges International Medical Students only.
Accommodation is provided by our partner acute trusts at the following hospitals:
East Kent
William Harvey Hospital, Ashford
Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother Hospital, Margate
Kent & Canterbury Hospital, Canterbury
https://www.ekhuft.nhs.uk/patients-and-visitors/work-here/living-in-east-kent/accommodation/
West Kent
Dartford accommodation for the mental health blocks for undergraduates will be organised privately by our KMPT Medical Education team.
Maidstone Hospital, Maidstone
https://me.mtw.nhs.uk/facilities/accommodation/
Medway Maritime Hospital, Gillingham
https://www.medway.nhs.uk/services/medical-education.htm
Experience
A typical medical student’s experience will include:
- Full trust and local inductions
- Electronic patient systems training
- Personal safety breakaway training
- Regular supervision with clinical supervisor
- Access to weekly journal clubs
- Access to doctors’ resource rooms and resource materials
- Access to libraries via our partner acute trusts where students are accommodated
- The chance to observe ECT and join the doctor on-call (sign-up service)
- A Trust issued laptop to ensure access to IT and electronic patient notes whilst on clinical placement
- The opportunity to see your undergraduate administrator at least weekly
- Access to the trust intranet and online resources
- The opportunity to become involved in research if available
On each main hub site there are the following facilities:
- Doctors resource room with:
- Tea and coffee making facilities
- Rest area
- Dining area
- IT access
- Microwave
- AV facilities
- Reading and research materials
- Main restaurant with dine-in and takeaway options for hot and cold food:
- Maidstone – KMPT Riverside Café, Hot food machines in Priority House plus access to Maidstone Hospital Trust canteen and many takeaway restaurants on site
- Medway – access to Medway Maritime Hospital Trust canteen and many takeaway food shops on site
- Dartford – KMPT Trust canteen/Takeaways plus Hot food machine and many takeaway food shops on site
- Canterbury – KMPT Trust canteen ECAO /Takeaways plus Hot food machine
Thanet – KMPT Hot food machines at TMH plus access to QEQM Hospital Trust canteen and many takeaway food shops on site plus
Ashford – access to William Harvey Hospital Trust canteen and many takeaway food shops on site
King College London Teaching
In each block, a full day of teaching will run every Thursday. Teaching is aimed at being an interactive group activity rather than didactic lectures.
Topics are typically timetabled by week. Example teaching timetable:
Week 1: Induction
Week 2: Every Day Psychiatry On-Call
Week 3: Older Adult Mental Health
Week 4: Every Night Psychiatry On-Call
Week 5: Risk Assessment and Management
Week 6: Child and Adolescent Mental Health
Week 7 : Forensic Mental Health
Teaching is delivered in the main by consultant psychiatrists who are passionate about education and strive to prepare and empower the next generation of medics. Every teaching day is also attended by the undergraduate administrator who offers full support to both the faculty and the students.
A timetable is sent to students prior to Induction and an agenda for each teaching session prior to the event.
St George’s Teaching
St George’s International Medical students have various virtual and face to face teaching sessions during their six week Psychiatry rotation.
The have one to one teaching with Dr Richard Brown weekly, and they also join our King’s College Medical Students for joint Medical student teaching.
This is delivered either virtually, or face to face at external venues.
Kent and Medway Medical School
Currently we receive medical students from the Kent & Medway Medical School who are in Year 3 of their training programme.
KMPT provides the Psychiatry Module of the Year 3 curriculum which runs one day a week from September to June on Tuesdays.
Every week half of the students attend a placement either in an inpatient or community setting while the other half attend Psychiatry Teaching sessions.
The students swap round each week so that they all gain experience in placements and build on their Psychiatry knowledge on alternate weeks.
There are fourteen Psychiatry topics covered across the teaching programme which is delivered on three sites to enable smaller groups at each venue.
Teaching is supported by Higher Trainees (Education Fellows), Core Trainees and Consultant Psychiatrist Subject Experts.
Reasonable pre-approved travel expenses incurred from accommodation to clinical work placement and teaching will be reimbursed by KMPT.
Your undergraduate administrator (UA) will give you a form to complete and monies will be paid directly into your bank account.
Students who drive and bring a car to their mental health placement should inform their UA and discuss travel arrangements prior to seeking reimbursement.
For King’s College London students only - Your one return journey at the end of your mental health block will be reimbursed by KCL and as such, the KCL travel policy should be followed for reimbursement.
KMPT /St Martin’s Hospital receives year 3 international medical students from St George’s International School of Medicine in Grenada. These students are from all backgrounds and countries including America, Canada, Trinidad and Tobago, Nigeria, British Virgin Islands and Grenada to name a few.
The students rotate through East Kent Hospitals University Foundation NHS Trust for their core rotations, and spend 6 weeks at St Martin’s Hospital and our affiliated sites to complete a 6 week core in Psychiatry. During this time students go into clinical environments in all different specialities of psychiatry to gain good varied exposure.
Student numbers vary each year, however, usually we receive up to four students at one time, consistently throughout the year.
We are very proud of our success rate for the core rotation psychiatry with the vast majority of students going on to achieve excellent pass rates in the NBME exam at the end of their rotation with us.
“During my placement I could not have been happier or more comfortable. I had all of my activities scheduled and it provided me with a range of experiences each week to allow me as much exposure as I could have in my 6 weeks. I was happy to be included in the other school’s teaching sessions, as well. Additionally, coming from Margate, transport was arranged to and from my placements, which definitely was a great help. I had an excellent time throughout”.
Library and knowledge services are made available to our staff through libraries at acute trusts linked to Kent and Medway.
By joining a NHS library most convenient to you, you can gain access to the latest health-related books and journals. We also provide our own resource rooms at Maidstone, Medway, Canterbury and Dartford.
Did you know that the NHS Knowledge and Library hub link can be accessed through both the KMPT i-connect intranet (Library Services page) and through iLearn?
The iconnect page includes a link to the NHS Knowledge and Library hub, user guide, account set up details plus contact details to all your local libraries.
You can also access Library Reports for KMPT on Padlet https://padlet.com/quietformunited/kmpt-lfg-q5t8wq9hnkr5x1kk.
Padlet is a ‘living’ document so will automatically update when new reports are added and the link remains the same.
Our KMPT Dedicated Librarian Maria Hughes maria.hughes8@nhs.net
