WATCCH: a multiprofessional approach to widening participation in healthcare careers.

Background: Students from lower socioeconomic backgrounds are underrepresented in higher education and healthcare careers. Whilst most healthcare-related widening participation schemes focus on one healthcare profession, the Widening Access to Careers in Community Healthcare (WATCCH) programme at Imperial College London supports participation in a range of community healthcare careers. We aim to evaluate the impact of WATCCH on students' perceptions and aspirations towards community healthcare careers.

"BURSTING THE BUBBLE": Service learning in schools.

Background: At Imperial College, we developed a novel teaching programme for medical students based within a local primary school, with the aim of developing students' teaching skills and centring social accountability in our curriculum. Similar service-learning programmes have shown significant benefit for student participants, including: improving communication skills, developing an understanding of the social determinants of health, and increased empathy. In partnership with a local primary school, the programme involved a group of medical students designing, developing and delivering a teaching session to primary school children.

Introducing quality improvement teaching into general practice undergraduate placements.

Quality Improvement skills are deemed essential for future clinical practice of doctors by professional regulatory bodies. This paper presents the challenges of a curriculum development initiative to ensure that all medical students have involvement with a quality improvement project during a general practice placement in their fourth year. The curriculum development is described within a 'Plan-Do-Study-Act' framework.

Differing perceptions among ethnic minority and Caucasian medical students which may affect their relative academic performance.

Introduction: Ethnic minority (EM) medical students in the United Kingdom underperform academically compared to their Caucasian counterparts, but the reasons are unclear and further understanding is required.

Aim: To explore self-reported factors that might influence academic underperformance of EM medical students.

Method: An online semi-structured questionnaire was used to identify associations between several dimensions that had been identified in previous research and obtain free-text comments.