PGCert in TEBHC: the final curtain? Perhaps not.

This is the third blog documenting my experience exploring the field of teaching and evidence-based health care and where those 2 fields meet on the Postgraduate certificate in Teaching Evidence-Based Health Care (EBHC). I’m pleased to report that I graduated from the programme in January 2021.

Even though I would consider myself an experienced clinician and teacher, this journey turned out to be exciting and refreshing for me. Experience is not the same as competence. I wasn’t completely off track, but it was refreshing to me to get challenged and invited to explore my own practice more thoroughly. The basis of evidence-based practice after all is to be curious and question what you (already for years…) do.

The strength of this course is the anchoring into practice. I derived the topics from my own working environment and fed back what I had harvested during the course to my work team. This resulted, for example, in a series of supervision workshops that I organized with representatives of the whole ‘community of practice’ with the aim to improve supervision skills in the work-based learning setting.

In my last blog, coming not too long after completing the course, I mentioned I “…will go for a refreshing new dive again!” Well, let me tell you a bit more about that.

After completing the formal components of the programme, the course tutors (David Nunan and Adrian Stokes) offered to our cohort the chance to apply for professional status as a ‘Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (FHEA)’ with UK Advance HE, via the Oxford University’s Teaching Recognition Scheme (TRS). I dived in. I’m glad I did.

The process was a real eye opener to me! I had to prove my involvement in different dimension of education that I was hardly aware of. The 3 dimensions are: Area of Activity, Core Knowledge and Professional Values subdivided into many more categories like: teaching design, professional development, assessment and evaluation, learning and teaching theory, evidence-based approach, research, continuing professional development, to mention a few!

In August 2021 I was successfully awarded FHEA status. The TRS team was fantastic and a particular thanks to my tutors who supported me throughout the process.

So, what comes next? That is still to be decided. David has informed me of the possibility to study another year and make the qualification into a full MSc in EBHC Teaching & Education which offers a research avenue in EBHC and medical education. What research questions arise in my fantasy? For starters:

• What is the best timing for EBHC teaching in the medical curriculum?
• What are the barriers for implementing EBHC in practice?
• What is the attitude towards EBHC in low- and middle-income countries?
• What is the attitude of health care managers towards EBHC and Value Based Health Care?

Anyhow, so far so good.

If you have hesitations in following my journey my recommendation to you is….dive right in!

Veerle Langenhorst [PG Cert in Teaching EBHC Oxford; FHEA]