Associate Professor Silas Taylor

I am a skilled, multiple award-winning teacher, including of the Vice Chancellors award (2017). My expertise is in Clinical Skills teaching and I have considerable experience in, and enthusiasm for, simulation-based medical education. As a medical educator, my research focuses on my teaching practice.

As a curriculum designer, I have successfully implemented a volunteer Simulated Patient Program (SPP) into the UNSW Medicine curriculum, as well as the technologically and educationally innovative Online Simulated Patient Interaction and Assessment (OSPIA) online platform. My research has shown that introduction of the SPP led to a significant improvement in student OSCE scores in our program across all skills domains. Similarly, OSPIA has been demonstrated to lead to significant improvements in students’ communication skills.

In 2017, I led the development of the Clinical Workplace-based Assessment application. CWAapp is now being used by students for all assessments in the clinical setting and to record clinical encounters and log competence in clinical skills and procedures. This powerful record will benefit students, tutors and administrators as well as improve academic oversight and quality assurance for the medical program. Furthermore, it will provide considerable data for research.

I welcome the opportunity to work with those who wish to work in the field of medical education research.