Mike Davis

‘Effectiveness of Continuing Professional Development’ project: A summary of findings

This article reports on a study examining continuing professional development (CPD) for consultant doctors. The aim of the study was to identify what promotes or inhibits the effectiveness of CPD and met the following objectives: comparing and contrasting the experiences of CPD across the range of specialties; identifying and describing the range of different models of CPD employed across the different specialties and clinical contexts; considering the educational potential of reflective practice in CPD and its impact on professional practice and exploring how different professionals judge the effectiveness of current CPD practices. Using a mixture of qualitative (interviews, letters, observation) and quantitative (online questionnaire) methods, the views of CPD providers and users were surveyed. Findings suggested that the effectiveness of CPD, as inferred from the comments made by interviewees and questionnaire respondents, relates to the impact on knowledge, skills, values, attitudes, behaviours and changes in practice in the work place. The quality of CPD was seen as inextricably linked to any improvements in the quality of the professional practices required for service delivery. There was widespread consensus as to the value of learning in professional settings. There was recognition that there needs to be a move away from tick boxes to the in-depth identification of learning needs and how these can be met both within and external to the work place, with learning being adequately enabled and assessed in all locations. In conclusion, it can be said that CPD is valued and is seen as effective when it addresses the needs of individual clinicians, the populations they serve and the organisations within which they work. However, the challenge for CPD may lie in the dynamic interaction between educational opportunities and service delivery requirements, as there may be occasions where they vie with each other for resources.

The European Trauma Course (ETC) and the team approach: past, present and future.

The European Trauma Course (ETC) was officially launched during the international conference of the European Resuscitation Council (ERC) in 2008. The ETC was developed on behalf of ESTES (European Society of Trauma and Emergency Surgery), EuSEM (European Society of Emergency Medicine), the ESA (European Society of Anaesthesiology) and the ERC. The objective of the ETC is to provide an internationally recognised and certified life support course, and to teach healthcare professionals the key principles of the initial care of severely injured patients. Its core elements, that differentiates it from other trauma courses, are a strong focus on team training and a novel modular design that is adaptable to the differing regional European requirements. This article describes the lessons learnt during the European Trauma Course development and provides an outline of the planned future development.

Human Factors in the Healthcare Setting: A Pocket Guide for Clinical Instructors.

The profile of human factors has increased in prominence in medical education over the last decade. Adapted from the aviation industry’s ‘Crew Resource Management’, it is defined as ‘systems, behaviours or actions that modify human performance’, with the aim of improving patient safety. In many courses, such as Intermediate/ Advanced Life Support (ILS/ALS), there is now a chapter dedicated to human factors in the course handbook. ‘Human Factors in the Healthcare Setting’ is a course book from the Advanced Life Support Group (ALSG). In terms of size, it sits between the small pamphlets and online resources found on the NHS Patient Safety First website and heavier, more academic tomes such as Flin’s ‘Safety at the Sharp End: A Guide to Non-Technical Skills(1) or Decker’s ‘Patient Safety: A Human Factors Approach(2). The book covers the major human factors topics in small chapters, each about ten pages long. The chapters start with some background models that would be familiar to those who have had formal management teaching: Reason’s Swiss cheese model of accident causation and the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator for personality. The second part of the chapter then deals with practical strategy and application. Some strategies will be familiar to those already working in the NHS such as the SBAR for conducting medical handovers. Others have been adapted from the aviation industry (e.g. T-DODAR used by British Airways pilots to aid decision-making) or locally-developed aids which have not yet achieved wide-spread use (e.g. STARR from the Lancashire Simulation Centre). The book concludes with four clinical scenarios across a wide variety of settings (although not a primary care scenario), some of which will