Daniel Anderson¹
1 The Christie NHS Foundation Trust 

The Paterson Programme (Professional Advancement in Training and Education: Reflection and Supervision in ONcology) is an innovative postgraduate professional supervision experience for doctors in training at all grades and in all specialties based in a UK regional cancer hospital. Created and led by a psychiatrist and psychotherapist with a background in medical education, the programme uses action learning sets (Paterson groups) to provide monthly peer coaching and mentoring in groups. Using techniques from the field of psychotherapy, the programme can also provide as required confidential 1-2-1 supervision to doctors in training and to educational and clinical supervisors who need extra support in their roles. The programme has been created to facilitate professional awareness in preparation for becoming a consultant and focusses on the creation of reflective and enquiring self- and peer- assessed attitudinal development alongside didactic teaching of relevant leadership and management skills. 

The Paterson programme was initially developed in response to the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on education from the perspectives of learners, supervisors, and institutions, focusing on both active support and career retention. For doctors within training posts particularly, significant changes to service requirements, curtailed exposure to non-Covid presentations and directed day-day management disrupted norms. Burnout and moral injury are increasingly recognised amongst doctors in training. Whilst we have seen the return to learning alongside working, there has been little opportunity for our trainees to consider their learning needs, especially during important transitions moving from the relative independence of basic training to the relative interdependence of higher training (especially in highly specialist fields such as oncology). 

The best model that could apply to this experience comes the pedagogic and professional practice of psychotherapy (and specifically group analytic psychotherapy) whereby the group analytic model of supervision provides a third space sitting in between roles and helps to bridge gaps in professional and personal experience. It is often the interface between these various identities where problems start to generate and become difficulties preventing professionals from satisfactorily performing their professional roles. The programme also centres around organisational culture and values and is underpinned by the question: ‘What sort of values will be important to you as a consultant?’. In this regard the programme provides neither a clinical space, nor a managerial space, and is solely educational by providing to bridge various gaps that trainees may experience during professional transitions that may affect their sense of well- being and development. 

This workshop is suitable for up to 15 attendees at an intermediate/advanced level (and especially those responsible for the delivery of health education at an organisational level). The format will briefly describe the curriculum and structure of the programme and its early outcomes to date. There will be the opportunity to experience a ‘Paterson group’ using attendee participation to give a real sense of the experience of learning and self-assessment in this highly reflective format. There will be time at the end of the group to reflect on the experience. 

References (maximum three) 

Boud, D. & Soler, R.(2016)Sustainable assessment revisited.Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education,41(3),400-413. 

Kilminster, S. et al (2011). Preparedness is not enough: understanding transitions as critically intensive learning periods. Medical Education, 45: 1006–1015. 

Wenger, E. (1998). Communities of Practice: Learning, Meaning and Identity. Cambridge, CUP.