Better Health For All

I didn’t think too much about the invitation to express interest in being a Faculty of Public Health examiner – it just felt like the right thing to do. Once I had applied and was approved, I was excited to join the team. So I was glad to be attending my first Examiner Training session in London on the 15th of March. The day was set aside for training, standard setting and question setting. These activities, at first, seemed obvious and possibly boring but they turned out to be anything but!

Once I had hopped off the tube at Great Portland Street, I made a dash across the road for the venue at Park Crescent Conference Centre. Arriving a few minutes late to a room full of colleagues from various places across the country who were mostly experienced examiners, I tip-toed in. I was eased into the room very quickly with kind smiles from around, chiefly from colleagues whom I had worked with years ago and hadn’t seen in a while. The business of the day quickly got past the examiner training which was delivered expertly by a colleague whose background was outside public health.

Then came time for the standard setting. This was everything I had not expected it to be. We went through questions, assessing each for the proportion of candidates at around training ‘entry’ level who we would expect to do just enough to pass that question. These were collated for all the examiners who were then given a chance to share the rationale for their scores and adjust, considering wider discussion, if they wished.

Mean scores, if within a limit of standard deviation, were accepted as the standard for a pass on that question. In all, what struck me most was the significant focus on the candidate. Where questions had even the slightest chance of not being very clear to a candidate, they were highlighted for change. The same approach was carried over into the question setting session where we had the opportunity to set new questions within our assigned examination sections. Each question was then peer-evaluated and honed, each time focusing on the candidate who would be sitting the examination to ensure it was clear and appropriate.

As the day ended, I was glad for the opportunity to catch up with colleagues whom I hadn’t seen in a while, meet new ones, and appreciate a process which positively surprised me in its ‘candidate-centredness’ and attention to detail. As I boarded my train back home to South East Wales, I couldn’t but have my attention drawn to acts of kindness I saw in the train from strangers, one to another. From the kind smiles to the considerate use of space and digital equipment, what I saw was very much like what I had seen all day at the examiner training sessions – genuine consideration of another’s needs. This warmed my heart very much and added to the lovely memories I have of being part of that session.

Written by Dr. Kelechi Nnoaham, Director of Public Health, Cwm Taf University Health Board, Wales.