Since 2016 the National Video Conferencing Service has helped Dr Umesh Basavaraju (Consultant Gastroenterologist, NHS Grampian) with his student teaching project for live endoscopy training. The state of the art endoscopy equipment in Aberdeen Royal Infirmary has been paired with video conferencing facilities so that students can now see live endoscopy procedures to assist with their learning. They can also ask questions in real time to get a better understanding of the whole practice. Recent teaching sessions have also been able to reach more students/participants using Microsoft Teams and Cisco Meeting Server to help widen the appeal of each session and allow users to join easily from their own homes via tablet/smartphone/laptop/desktop PC. This functionality has proved to be very popular and the feedback from students has been positive.
Dr Basavaraju recently received a Medical Directorate Award for innovation in training for his work on this matter. He stated that “Whilst the NHS Scotland NES award has been given to me for innovation in training, most of the credit for this should go to the NHS Scotland Video Conferencing team and the Grampian Medical Physics team who have helped and supported this since 2016. The ongoing support is much appreciated.”
The new VC equipment has also opened the door to global training and Dr Basavaraju has been involved in international projects sharing live endoscopy procedures with colleagues in India so that each location can learn from each other.
The setup used for these sessions is not fixed to endoscopy and could be replicated in other departments throughout all of NHS Scotland. If you are interested to find out Video Conferencing can assist your area please contact 01224 816666 or email vc.support@nhs.scot.