The clinical teacher
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New standards for resident work hours set in 2011 changed the landscape of patient care in teaching hospitals, and resulted in new challenges for US residency training programmes to overcome. One such challenge was a dramatic increase in the number of patient handovers performed by residents. As a result, there is a renewed focus for clinical teachers to develop educational strategies to optimise the patient handover process and improve the quality of patient care and safety. ⋯ Interns conducted patient handovers face to face, with questions asked, in private locations, with written documentation and without distractions the majority of the time; however, interruptions during the handover process were common. Exploring gaps at the individual programme level is a critical first step to develop effective teaching strategies to optimise handovers in residency.
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The clinical teacher · Jun 2010
Faculty-development activity to promote effective communication between instructors and students.
Educators claim that conflicts and teacher-student miscommunications interfere in achieving optimal learning outcomes. ⋯ The positive feedback is very encouraging. We believe that our workshops amplify the desired effective instructor-student communication, and suggest that the success of this intervention is partly achieved by selecting problematic issues of communication, and adjusting them to the current needs of our faculty members. In order to reproduce our approach, we suggest that other institutions should define their own values and communication code. We recommend them to use the same technique of intervention among a small group in an empowering atmosphere of discussion, using their own situations.
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Natural disasters strike communities that have varied degrees of preparedness, both physical and psychological. Rural communities may be particularly vulnerable as they often do not have the infrastructure or resources to prepare in advance. The psychological impact of a natural disaster is amplified in learners who may be temporary members of the community and therefore cannot draw on personal support during the crisis. They may turn to their clinical preceptors for guidance. ⋯ Although disasters occur rarely, there is a need for guidelines for preceptors from the learner perspective. Accordingly, using a modified Delphi approach, we captured the experiences of learners that were then refined into two themes, each containing three recommendations: considerations for action during a natural disaster and considerations for action after the acute crisis has passed. Although disasters occur rarely, there is a need for guidelines for preceptors from the learner perspective IMPLICATIONS: Our recommendations provide suggestions for practical solutions that build on the usual expectations of mentors and may benefit the student-teacher relationship at the time of a disaster and beyond. They are meant to initiate discussion regarding further study aimed towards creating recommendations for preceptor response that may cross disciplines.
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The clinical teacher · Aug 2016
Comparative StudySimulated patients versus manikins in acute-care scenarios.
Manikins and simulated patients (SPs) are commonly used in health care education and assessment. SPs appear to offer a more realistic experience for learners than 'plastic' manikins, and might be expected to engender interactions that approximate real clinical practice more closely. The analyses of linguistic patterns and touch are methodologies that could be used to explore this hypothesis. Our research aims were: (1) to compare verbal interactions and the use of procedural touch by health care workers (HCWs) in scenarios with SPs and with manikins; and (2) to evaluate the methodologies used to inform a large-scale study. ⋯ These methodologies offer opportunities for further research projects studying interactions with SPs, manikins and real clinical practice.
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The clinical teacher · Mar 2010
Leadership lessons from military education for postgraduate medical curricular improvement.
quality medical education includes both teaching and learning of data-driven knowledge, and appropriate technical skills and tacit behaviours, such as effective communication and professional leadership. But these implicit behaviours are not readily adaptable to traditional medical curriculum models. This manuscript explores a medical leadership curriculum informed by military education. ⋯ medical education has long emphasised subject-matter knowledge as a prime focus. However, in competency-based medical education, new curriculum models are needed. Many helpful models can be found in other professional fields. Collaborations between professional educators benefit the students, who are learning these new skills, the medical educators, who work jointly with other professionals, and the original curriculum designer, who has an opportunity to reflect on the strengths and weaknesses of his or her model.