Podiatry student uses national programme to help peers get a better foothold on anatomy

A University student has become one of a small number accepted onto an annual national programme geared toward helping develop other students and their profession.

Catriona Doyle – a first year Podiatry student from Northern Ireland – is enrolled onto the Student Leadership Programme. She will be using the knowledge gained from a previous qualification to help peers new to the subject get a better foot-hold on anatomy.

The Student Leadership Programme is a partnership between the Council of Deans of Health and the Burdett Trust for Nursing. Run annually for the past three years, it is targeted at 50 students of nursing, midwifery and allied health profession courses across the UK and offers them exposure to leadership training, networking and mentoring.

The students who take part complete a number of workstreams including leading on a project that has a positive impact on their university or university peers and to ensure learning from the programme is shared with fellow students.

For her project, Catriona has decided to focus on helping podiatry students at the University of Northampton better communicate with patients whilst getting to grips with the anatomical side of podiatry.

Catriona will be working with her peers to find out which aspect of anatomy they find most challenging by using a pop-quiz.

Following the results of the quiz, she will carry out some of the techniques learned during a previous neuro-linguistic programming (NLP) course to assess the students’ confidence and recall.

Catriona: “It can be a hard task as a student, but I have decided to use one of my personal interests – neuro-linguistic programming (NLP) – to help podiatry students.

“I completed a diploma in NLP back home. This is about helping people aspire to excellence by focusing on their thoughts, language and how they behave, and changing these to help them achieve specific goals in life. The Podiatry team here at Northampton have been very supportive of this project and I am able to use the simulation room at the hospital to practice which is a privilege.

“The Student Leadership Programme is very prestigious and I’m very happy to be talking part as I wanted to develop my skills in communication, help my fellow students and make contact with other students across the country.”

All students submit a final report to the Council of Deans of Health later this year, in which they reflect on the experience of the programme.

Find out more about Podiatry at University of Northampton.