Developing a Student-Centred Curriculum: Insights from Anaesthetic Placement Experiences for Co-Designing in China’s Greater Bay Area

Chanyan Huang,1,* Ying Xiao,1,* Dan Xu,2,3,* Io Nam Wong,4 Nivritti Gajanan Patil,4 Jiancong Chen,2 Kunsong Zhang,2 Wenjie Hu,2 Jianrong Zhang,2 Shuqin Ding,2 Ming Kuang,2 Haipeng Xiao,2 Xia Feng1 1Department of Anaesthesiology, The First Affiliated Hospital, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, People’s Republic of China; 2Department of Medical Education, The First Affiliated Hospital, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, People’s Republic of China; 3General Practice Research and International Collaboration, Curtin School of Population Health/Curtin Medical School, Faculty of Health Sciences, Curtin University, Perth, WA, Australia; 4Practice Research, Faculty of Medicine, Macau University of Science and Technology, Macau, People’s Republic of China*These authors contributed equally to this workCorrespondence: Xia Feng, Email [email protected] Ming Kuang, Email [email protected]: Medical education standards influence the academic performance and clinical competencies of medical students as career practitioners. With the rising demand for teaching innovation and technological advancement in medical education, clinical teaching in China has faced many challenges, which necessitate a re-evaluation of traditional educational approaches. To overcome these challenges, the tertiary hospital in Guangzhou and the medical school in Macau have initiated the reform of clinical teaching in an undergraduate teaching program with a specific project for Macau medical students to perform clinical placement in anaesthesia at the tertiary hospital in Guangzhou. The project was co-led and co-chaired by both institutions and coordinated by the Anaesthetic Department, International Office, and Medical Education Department at the tertiary hospital in Guangzhou. This project aimed to analyse students’ anaesthetic placement experiences to illustrate the effectiveness of collaborative teaching and the development of a student-co-designed curriculum.Methods: The participating medical students attended the anaesthetic placement at the tertiary hospital in Guangzhou, which is scheduled to spend one day in operating theatres, recovery rooms, and central theatre pharmacies under supervision. All participating students provided post-placement feedback by answering a pre-designed enquiry questionnaire to develop a co-designed curriculum. Post-placement feedback, including written reflections in response to the enquiry questionnaires, was collected and semantically analysed.Results: Post-placement feedback in response to the enquiry questionnaires was presented as themes, which formed the core elements of the student-co-designedanaesthetic placement curriculum.Conclusion: This study demonstrates the effective implementation of collaborative teaching and curriculum co-designed in anaesthesia education at a tertiary hospital in the “Greater Bay Innovative Zones of China”. This curricular design model facilitates the development of a student-centred anaesthetic curriculum for better clinical teaching and learning.Keywords: student-centred curriculum, curriculum co-design, anaesthetic placement, clinical teaching, clinical learning