Susan Morison

Height and weight in cystic fibrosis: a cross sectional study

Cross sectional data reporting the height, weight, and body mass index of UK patients with cystic fibrosis are presented. During the first decade of life height and weight in patients with cystic fibrosis are maintained at about 0.5 SD below those of the general population, which reflects an improvement over earlier published observations. Postpubertal stature and weight maintenance in the cystic fibrosis population still show substantial deficits which may be related to treatment.

Developing pre-qualification inter-professional education for nursing and medical students: sampling student attitudes to guide development

Teamwork and collaboration are regarded as important goals for health and social care education and inter-professional education (IPE) the vehicle to achieve this. However, there is debate concerning the best strategies for implementation, location and delivery of IPE. This exploratory study was undertaken to anticipate some of the problems of implementing a pre-qualification IPE programme for Childrens Branch nursing students and medical students undertaking a Paediatrics module and to identify strategies to maximise success. A modified version of the readiness for inter-professional learning scale (RIPLS), including additional open-ended questions, was used with a convenient, purposeful sample of 20 medical and 10 nursing students. Both groups regarded learning team-working skills as important. Medical students regarded IPE as a means to learn about team-work and professional roles otherwise they indicated a preference for a discipline-based approach. Both groups were found to have acquired a strong sense of their own professional role. Both perceived IPE as disadvantageous if it impeded their own professional learning. Results also highlighted the importance of class size, stage of learning, appropriate skills and subject in IPE planning. We conclude that a small exploratory study can provide a useful guide for programme planning and additional qualitative data can enable a more comprehensive explanation of results.

Sustained effects of interprofessional shared learning on student attitudes to communication and team working depend on shared learning opportunities on clinical placement as well as in the classroom

Background: Delivering high quality healthcare increasingly requires effective team working, and interprofessional shared learning (SL) is crucial to this. This study compares the attitudes, 1 year after experience of an undergraduate SL programme, of students who had participated in the programme with their peers who had not. Methods: 207 students were invited to complete a questionnaire to assess the impact of SL on attitudes to clinical competence and behaviour. Responses were received from 171 students (83%) who had either had no experience of SL, SL in lectures only, or SL in lectures and clinical placement. Results: Significantly different responses were found between the three groups for a number of the statements, and these were further developed in responses to the open-ended questions. Only group 3 had developed and sustained a less exclusive attitude and were better able to appreciate that SL can make an important contribution to learning communication skills and understanding patient problems. Conclusions: This raises important questions about the approach taken to undergraduate SL if it is to have a contributory effect to attitudes about professional identity, and a significant effect in improving the quality of care provided by the doctors and nurses of tomorrow. Practice points Interprofessional shared learning helps prepare healthcare students for effective team working, but debate continues as to how this can best be achieved and sustained. Only a combined classroom and clinical placement programme resulted in sustained benefits in students’ understanding of shared learning and its relevance to their future practice. This has important implications for the development of undergraduate shared learning for healthcare professionals.

A New Concept of Interprofessional Education in Planning Programmes: Reflections on Healthy Urban Planning Project

Abstract Although widely debated, some of the defining professional characteristics of planners appear to be competencies in co-ordination, mediation and multidisciplinary working. Despite this, there is little pedagogical reflection on how interprofessional skills are promoted in planning programmes. This paper reflects on the experience of bringing together undergraduate students from medicine and planning to explore the concept of Healthy Urban Planning in a real life context of an urban motorway extension. This reveals a number of unexpected outcomes of such collaboration and points to the value of promoting interprofessional education, both as a way of increasing interest in some of the key challenges now facing society and in order to induce greater professional reflection amongst our students.