Jacqui Brewster

The anatomy lesson of Dr Nicolaes Tulp: what can it teach us today?

We report on the use of a high fidelity patient simulator (SimMan) within a clinical lab setting to teach learning disability nursing students about epilepsy management. We had previously prepped the students with verbal discussions on epilepsy management and, when the simulator began to undergo a seizure, small groups of students managed the unfolding scenario. We received written feedback from the students on the experience, and with reference to this and to the wider literature we consider the benefits of this approach to patient care. We surmise that lessons learned here will be applicable to trainee professionals from other parts of the register and in other fields allied to healthcare. We anticipate that this will improve care for people with intellectual disability in line with recommendations in Health Care for All (2008).

Dr Tulp attends the soft machine: Patient simulators, user involvement and intellectual disability

Simulation as a way to teach clinical skills attracts much critical attention. Its benefits, however, might be significantly reduced when the simulation model used relies exclusively on patient simulators. This is particularly true if the intended patient population for students taught is characterized by intellectual disability. Learning to care for people with intellectual disability might be better supplemented when the simulation model used incorporates input from ‘real’ people. If these people themselves have intellectual disabilities then the verisimilitude of the simulation will be higher and the outcomes for learners and potential patients will also be improved.

Intellectual disability, hate crime and other social constructions : A view from South Yorkshire

The category of hate crime is a recent legislative response to the increasing levels of antisocial, criminal and discriminatory behaviours and practices that target a wide spectrum of individuals on the basis of their identification within certain minority sociological subcultures. People with intellectual disability are often targeted for this kind of behaviour. Here, we report on an evaluation of one English city’s efforts to instigate a street-based scheme to offer some security and protection to its intellectually disabled citizens. The physical location of the premises and the engagement of the staff employed therein have some bearing on their potential to be effective in offering shelter and support to distressed individuals. But even where premises are well situated with positive staffing, the absence of local records to list the uptake of the scheme leaves room for doubt about its overall effectiveness.

Dr. Tulp, I Presume: Intellectual Disability and Ethnicity in Rotherham.

In this article, we report on that aspect of our ongoing simulation project which focuses on the cultural needs of a ‘virtual’ young man living with profound and multiple intellectual disabilities, who is British Asian and receives care in a residential setting. We describe our involvement with a local agency who support families from black and minority ethnic populations and who have children with a variety of intellectual disabilities. We then go on to detail the focus group we attended and how we incorporated the data generated into a more comprehensive story for our ‘virtual’ young man, Ahmed.