Kwong Djee Chan

Twelve tips for teaching about patients with cognitive impairment

Abstract The global population is ageing and consequently cognitive problems are increasingly prevalent. To ensure that the healthcare needs of this complex group are met, healthcare professionals must receive adequate training in this field. There are, however, a variety of reasons why this is not currently being achieved, including, but not limited to: ethical and logistical issues relating to the delivery of educational experiences involving cognitively impaired patients; a failure of curricula to keep pace with the changing demographic; societal and institutional ageism; and the inherent complexity of the conditions. This article highlights challenges associated with the delivery of such training to medical undergraduates and presents strategies to tackle these. Drawing on current evidence where available, the 12 tips below offer educators practical advice on how to maximize the value of medical undergraduates’ educational experiences with cognitively impaired patients.

Exploring educational interventions to facilitate health professional students’ professionally safe online presence

Abstract Objective: To establish the most effective approach and type of educational intervention for health professional students, to enable them to maintain a professionally safe online presence. Method: This was a qualitative, multinational, multi-institutional, multiprofessional study. Practical considerations (availability of participants) led us to use a combination of focus groups and individual interviews, strengthening our findings by triangulating our method of data collection. The study gathered data from 57 nursing, medical and paramedical students across four sites in three countries (Aotearoa/New Zealand, Australia and Wales). A content analysis was conducted to clarify how and why students used Facebook and what strategies they thought might be useful to ensure professional usage. A series of emergent codes were examined and a thematic analysis undertaken from which key themes were crystallized. Results: The results illuminated the ways in which students use social networking sites (SNS). The three key themes to emerge from the data analysis were negotiating identities, distancing and risks. Students expressed the wish to have material about professional safety on SNS taught to them by authoritative figures to explain “the rules” as well as by peers to assist with practicalities. Our interactive research method demonstrated the transformative capacity of the students working in groups. Conclusions: Our study supports the need for an educational intervention to assist health professional students to navigate SNS safely and in a manner appropriate to their future roles as health professionals. Because health professional students develop their professional identity throughout their training, we suggest that the most appropriate intervention incorporate small group interactive sessions from those in authority, and from peers, combined with group work that facilitates and enhances the students’ development of a professional identity.

When I say … resilience

Arguably, within the medical education community, a phenomenon exists whereby a complex psychological or social problem is exposed and teachers identify an intervention to resolve the challenge. The problem and solution are then labelled, and the new phrases ‘stick’ and begin to develop currency in discourse among educators. Unfortunately, these new terms often mean a thousand different things to a thousand different teachers. At best, this conceptual superficiality and so-called ‘labellitis’ lead to discussion and pontification among teachers from different communities, in which a common understanding is falsely assumed and wildly different conclusions are drawn. At worst, this definitional diversity serves to silo our community and, by means of jargon, to bamboozle, confuse and alienate students and clinicians who are not familiar with ‘education-speak’.