Education Horizon-Scanning Bulletin– March 2015
Compiled by John Gale
JET Library – Mid-Cheshire NHS Foundation Trust
Contents
Education Horizon-Scanning Bulletin – March 2015
General Medical Education
Students in a digital world
Source: BMC Medical Education
Date of Publication: March 2015
In a nutshell: Love it or loathe it there’s no getting away from IT. In this study researchers from the University of Copenhagen surveyed 1,165 health-science students. 98.3% of them owned a laptop and 86.5% of them owned a smartphone. The students were most familiar with programmes such as Word and Excel. They used social media in their private lives but not so much for their studies and they also found that their teachers made limited use of social media. The most commonly used tool for their studies was e-mail and for communicating in their private lives it was texting. Younger students preferred chat services, while as they got older text and e-mail became more prevalent. More than half of the students said that the amount of IT lecturers used for teaching and learning was insufficient to prepare them for their future profession.
You can see the full text of this article here.
Department of Health publishes mandate for Health Education England and tariff for training
Source: Department of Health web site
Date of Publication: March 2015
In a nutshell: The Department of Health has published its mandate for Health Education England setting out what it wants the body with overall responsibility for educating the NHS workforce to do.
You can download a copy of the mandate here.
The Department of Health has also published its tariff for training which outlines how much hospitals and other providers can charge for providing training places.
You can download a copy of the tariff guidance here.
A healthy workforce for healthy patients
Source: Royal College of Physicians
Date of Publication: March 2015
In a nutshell: The Royal College of Physicians has published a report Work and wellbeing in the NHS into how the NHS treats its staff and what it can do to improve their wellbeing. The report outlines 10 priority areas for action which are:
- Prioritising staff engagement and wellbeing
- Implementing NICE guidance on public health interventions for the workplace
- Championing proactive occupational health
- Taking mental wellbeing seriously
- Valuing the role of supervisors and line managers
- Acting on inequality
- Enabling staff to have influence
- Empowering NHS organisations to take action
- Demonstrating national leadership
- Empowering physicians to lead
You can download the full text of the report here.
Flipping the classroom
Source: Medical Teacher
Date of Publication: March 2015
In a nutshell: When classrooms are ‘flipped,’ students are given material before the start of a class. Their time in the classroom is then spent working at a deeper level with the material, solving problems and deciding how to deal with hypothetical cases of various ailments. In this article a team of researchers - led by Neel Sharma from the National University Hospital, Hong Kong – provide a background review on the flipped classroom and a three-step approach on how to put it into practice made up of implementing, enacting and evaluating based on their own, positive, experience of putting the flipped classroom into practice at Hong Kong University. In another article in the same issue of Medical Teacher Jennifer Moffett, from Ross University School of Veterinary Medicine in St Kitts gives twelve tips for flipping the classroom for people thinking of adopting this approach.
You can find Dr Moffett’s article here.
How good a team player are you? Find out online
Source: Journal of Continuing Education in the Health Professions
Date of Publication: March 2015
In a nutshell: Research has shown, perhaps not surprisingly, that the better the quality of teamwork the safer and higher the quality of care. This study, led by Benjamin J. Chesluk from the American Board of Internal Medicine, looked into the effectiveness of a web-based teamwork-assessment module, the Teamwork Effectiveness Assessment Module (TEAM). The module combines self-assessment, feedback from other members of a doctor’s team and a structured review of this information from a peer aimed at helping doctors develop their own improvement plans. 20 of the 25 doctors who volunteered to use the software completed all the steps of the module including identifying team-mates to give them feedback, asking for feedback and getting one of their peers to review the data. The doctors described the feedback they received as helpful and practical and said that they had learnt things about themselves they otherwise wouldn’t have done.
You can see the full text of this article here.
Audience participation.A useful educational method or a bit of ARS?
Source: Journal of Continuing Education in the Health Professions
Date of Publication: March 2015
In a nutshell: Audience Response Systems or ARSs allow people in talks and lectures to vote on a series of alternatives with their answers being displayed on screen. But do they actually help people learn anything? Luke Grzeskowiak, from Lyell McEwin Hospital in Australia, led a team of researchers trying to find out in a study of 62 pharmacy students. 27 of them went to a presentation where they used an ARS to answer multiple-choice questions while the rest of the students went to a more conventional class where summary bullet points were used to replace the multiple-choice questions and audience participation. The students were tested before the classes and six weeks afterwards. There was no difference between the two groups in terms of how much the students had learned although the feedback about the ARS was ‘overwhelmingly positive.’
You can see the full text of this article here.
Health Education England publishes its widening participation policy
Source: Health Education England web site
Date of Publication: March 2015
In a nutshell: Most organisations nowadays are keen, or at least being made to be keen, on widening participation – making sure people from a variety of backgrounds get a chance to work for them. The NHS is no exception and Health Education England has asked one of its regions, Health Education North West, to come up with a strategy to do this. This strategy – Widening Participation, it matters! – has now been published. It sets out five key goals, which are:
- Improving the monitoring and reporting of widening-participation activities
- Enhancing the visibility and improving the targeting of health careers information and advice
- Finding out what does and doesn’t work as far as widening participation goes
- Increasing collaborative approaches in supporting widening-participation initiatives
- Helping healthcare organizations to give more people the chance to do work experience
You can download Widening Participation: it matters! here
Knowledge, learning and work on clinical placement
Source: Medical Teacher
Date of Publication: March 2015
In a nutshell: This study, by Sue Kilminster and Alison Ledger from Leeds University interviewed 40 medical, nursing and audiology students and 19 clinical teachers about clinical placements. The study found that both students and educators drew a distinction between aspects of the placement they classified as ‘learning,’ and aspects – which they tended to disregard – which they saw as work. The aspects seen as learning were the more technical and specialised one while activities more ‘basic,’ to care were seen as work. The researchers interviews with medical students and their teachers found that they were missing out on lots of opportunities to learn from other healthcare professions during their clinical placements.
You can see an abstract of this article here.
Inter-professional Education
Going global and going inter-professional
Source: Currents in Pharmacy Teaching & Learning
Date of Publication: March 2015
In a nutshell: Healthcare students often go abroad to work at some point during their courses to broaden their experience, something known as an elective. As well as gaining valuable experience about how things work in other countries an elective also has the potential to give students useful experience of working alongside different types of health professionals. In this study Linda I. Davis, from Loma Linda University in California led a team of researchers who set up an elective for five pharmacy students, and 11 nursing students in community clinics and hospital units in Botswana. After studying the project the researchers concluded that ‘global service learning,’ was a valuable opportunity to prepare collaborative teamwork and the preliminary evidence from the students suggested that their experience had developed the students’ cultural competence and compassion.
You can see an abstract of this article here.
Medical Education
Computer tests make a difference – but only for brighter students
Source: BMC Medical Education
Date of Publication: March 2015
In a nutshell: Students often practice tests online these days but does it actually make any difference to their performance in exams? Nilesh Kumar Mitra, from Taylor’s University in Malaysia, set out to study this issue. Mitra divided students into two groups. 102 took a practice paper test, while 65 took an online practice test for which they got automated feedback. Overall there was no significant difference between the two groups when it came to the final – real – exam. However, the students who had got higher marks in their entrance exams and who practiced on the computer tests did show an improvement in their final exam scores.
You can download the full text of this article from here.
Teaching the ECG to medical students
Source: BMC Medical Education
Date of Publication: March 2015
In a nutshell: Interpreting electrocardiograms (ECGs) is a useful, perhaps essential, skill for medical students. Signe RolskovBojsen led a team of Danish researchers testing the effectiveness of a stand-alone, web-based ECG tutorial. 203 medical students took part In the study and they were tested before and after they had done the course. Their average score improved from 52.7 beforehand to 68.4 afterwards and junior and more-senior doctors improved equally. The students who took part in the study were followed up after 2-4, 10-12 and 18-20 weeks and the researchers found that their knowledge had decayed quite significantly 20 weeks after the course although by that point junior doctors showed a bigger improvement than senior one.
You can see download the full text of this article here.
Personalised learning: students feel better but don’t learn more
Source: BMC Medical Education
Date of Publication: March 2015
In a nutshell: Students sometimes draw up personal learning plans before they start their clinical placements, setting out what they expect, or hope, to learn while they are there. But do they actually make a difference to how much students learn? In this study Richard P. Deane from Trinity College, Dublin studied 143 undergraduate medical students. 71 of them drew up personal learning plans, supported by a one-to-one induction with a clinical tutor and 72 of them (who were the control group) didn’t. The researchers found no difference in examination scores between the two groups although the group who had drawn up personal learning plans said that the personal learning plans and inductions had improved their learning experience.
You can download the full text of this article here.
GMC releases anti-bullying report
Source: GMC web site
Date of Publication: March 2015
In a nutshell: The General Medical Council has published a report Building a supportive environment which looks at the extent and level of bullying and undermining behaviour displayed by other health-care staff towards junior doctors and suggests ways in which this can be improved in future.
You can download a copy of the report here.
GMC looks at doctors’ paths through training
Source: GMC web site
Date of Publication: March 2015
In a nutshell: The GMC has published two reports analysing junior doctors’ success (or lack thereof) in their examinations and in applying for specialist training posts. Their research found that women doctors were more likely to pass their exams and be offered a training post than men. Ethnic-minority doctors from British medical schools did less well in their exams and were less successful in finding a training post than white doctors, although they were more successful than white doctors from foreign medical schools.
You can download the full text of both reports here.
Coming from abroad to knock people out – overseas anaesthetists working in London
Source: BMC Medical Education
Date of Publication: March 2015
In a nutshell: Have stethoscope will travel is a useful philosophy in the medical profession and the UK’s health service would probably grind to a halt without foreign doctors. Settling into a health service where things can be done differently and nobody speaks your language can be difficult though and in this study HuonSnelgrove from St George’s Medical School led a team of researchers interviewing anaesthetists who had come from abroad and were now working in the UK. They found that the anaesthetists felt they lacked the right kind of support to help them settle in but that they were keen to share the wider perspectives gained from their experiences working in different health-care systems.
You can download the full text of this article from here.
Getting into bed with Google®
Source: Medical Teacher
Date of Publication: March 2015
In a nutshell: Google® is now more than just a way of searching for things on the internet – they produce a whole range of software designed to help people do all sorts of different things. Justin G. Peacock from the San Antonio Uniformed Services Health Education Consortium and Joseph P. Grande from Mayo Clinic College of Medicine used a range of Google® apps to create a ‘collaborative classroom teaching and management system.’ The apps they used were:
- Blogger®
- Forms®
- Flubaroo®
- Sheets®
- Docs®
- Slides®
The 44 first-year medical students doing a pathology course seemed to like this approach. 73% said that Blogger® was an effective place for an online discussion of pathology topics and questions. 98% said that Forms®/Flubaroo® - which was used as a grade-reporting system was helpful. 91% of the students used Slides® to create presentations and 89% of them found the collaborative features useful. 93% of the students thought that the apps were helpful in establishing a collaborative, online classroom environment.
You can find the abstract of this article here.
Personalised audio feedback for OSCEs
Source: Medical Teacher
Date of Publication: March 2015
In a nutshell: Objective Structured Clinical Examinations (OSCEs), during which students treat people pretending to be patients, are an important part of students’ studies and exams now. Students often get little feedback about how well (or otherwise) they’ve done in their OSCEs so they can learn from them and do better next time. A team of researchers from Keele University developed an electronic OSCE system with an app for I-Pads which allowed examiners to mark in the key ‘consultation-skill domains;’ provide tick-box feedback identifying strengths and weaknesses and record voice feedback for the students. They also set up a feedback website which students could visit so they could view and listen to their feedback. 95% of the students accessed the examiners’ audio comments, 90% of them found the comments useful and 68% of them said they had changed the way they went about things as a result of the audio feedback. The students valued the personalised and relevant nature of the feedback and found it much more useful than its written equivalent.
You can see an abstract of this article here.
Training medical students to cope with distractions
Source: BMJ Quality and Safety
Date of Publication: March 2015
In a nutshell: Learning – or doing – anything while being subject to constant distractions can be at best annoying and at worst disastrous. For medical students this kind of thing is made worse by the complexity of the subjects they are trying to master, the number or distractions on wards and – above all – the consequences of getting it wrong. In this study, by researchers at Aberdeen University, 28 final-year medical students were divided into two groups. Both groups did two simulated ward rounds, the second one four weeks after the first. One group received no feedback between the two simulations while the other group received immediate feedback on managing distractions and avoiding errors. Both groups showed an improvement on the second simulated ward round but the one which received the feedback showed a 76.4% fall in errors, compared to the group which received no feedback which had a 42.1% fall.