Excellence in teaching

Associate Professor Paul McMenamin, originally from Glasgow, Scotland, has been at UWA for 17 years where he has developed his research interest in the structure and immunology of the eye. He has attracted numerous nationally competative research grants and is author of over 80 papers and co-author of a major textbook in his field. Paul received an Excellence in Teaching Award in 2002.

In the changing and shifting environment of medical education my overall teaching philosophy has remained unaltered and indeed it is the reason behind my involvement in curriculum development. A changing curriculum environment presents new challenges and this in itself is good for us as teachers. We can show students by our example that many of the generic skills and basic principles of learning that we hope to communicate as university educators are still valuable to us later in life as we ourselves adapt.

I am very fortunate in my role as a teacher in The School of Anatomy and Human Biology in that the great majority of my teaching is to medical students. This highly motivated, bright, hard working group of university students can clearly see the direct relevance of the material being taught to their future careers. This makes my role very rewarding. Anatomy acts as one of the foundations upon which good clinical medicine is built. This tangible link to the community at large (via the students I teach) is a strong personal motivation. Confidence in one's knowledge and skills is nowhere more apparent than in medical practice. The confidence to diagnose disease and treat patients comes from having a firm knowledge base and deep understanding the scientific principles of preclinical and paraclinical sciences (such as anatomy and pathology) as well as possessing generic problem solving, analytical and observational skills. I try to teach these skills in all aspects of the courses I coordinate. In the teaching of human anatomy from first year medical students to qualified surgeons and clinicians (in the new Ctec or Medical and Surgical Skills Centre) my philosophy is the same and can be summarised in the following quote:

You will remember some of what you hear
Much of what you read
More of what you see
And almost all of what you experience and fully understand (Anon)

With this in mind I try to engage and interact closely with students. I have started to drift away from didactic teaching methods in several of my courses. I think it is far more effective (and satisfying) to use small group teaching and practical classes to engage the students more fully. In making their learning more challenging and rewarding one hopes they will have a deeper learning experience.

There are some who may, misguidedly, think that learning human anatomy is merely a case of rote learning. Indeed funnily enough some students seem to gain a certain level of comfort from this form of memorising. But I discourage this method for obvious reasons. I believe that it is only by demonstrating the clinical relevance of the material and its underlying principles (such as the evolutionary and embryological basis of form and function) whilst at the same time engaging the student in the investigative process that they will have any chance of retaining the information beyond the time frame of the exams. Using these strategies I try to encourage students to become lifelong learners.

One slightly unusual aspect of my teaching philosophy bears mentioning, humour. I consider humour to be vitally important in my teaching. Some may think human anatomy classes may be the last place to use humour as a teaching tool. Others would be able to quickly think of some inherently humourous body parts. Seriously though, I cannot emphasise strongly enough that I believe the process of learning and having fun are not mutually exclusive. I think it is self-evident that if students are enjoying their learning experience they are more likely to retain the knowledge and skills we hope to transfer. I try wherever possible and whenever appropriate to engage the students in a friendly, empathetic and humorous way in the hope that they will be more receptive to learning. I hope that my manner and enthusiasm for the subject I teach will allow them to look back in years to come not only upon the knowledge gained during the anatomy courses but also on the good time they had learning it. If I have helped in some way to make a student's university studies a positive learning experience then I have succeeded in my mission as a teacher, in the same way as those excellent teachers whom I had the pleasure of learning from.