Broadening conceptions of learning in medical education: the message from teamworking

Professional identity and GP trainers as educational leaders

GP training in the UK has a long history of success, however that is measured. That success is in part due to the formality and credentialling that underlies preparation to take on that role of a GP teacher, which is somewhat under current threat due to workforce pressures. We identify three important factors associated with the GP trainer function [leadership, professional identity and clinical care improvement] that are not often analysed but are at some risk if preparation for the GP trainer role is reduced or devalued. Of particular note are the differing ways that GPs conceptualise their professional roles as teachers and clinicians, despite the transferable skills between them, the demonstrably improved patient care that occurs in practices that teach, and the necessary connections between educational theory and practice. We suggest that these areas define a research agenda ripe for exploration.

Midwives' experiences of professional learning when practicing collegial midwifery assistance during the active second stage of labour: data from the oneplus trial

BACKGROUND

Learning is a lifelong process and the workplace is an essential arena for professional learning. Workplace learning is particularly relevant for midwives as essential knowledge and skills are gained through clinical work. A clinical practice known as 'Collegial Midwifery Assistance' (CMA), which involves two midwives being present during the active second stage of labour, was found to reduce severe perineal trauma by 30% in the Oneplus trial. Research regarding learning associated with CMA, however, is lacking. The aim was to investigate learning experiences of primary and second midwives with varying levels of work experience when practicing CMA, and to further explore possible factors that influence their learning.

METHODS

The study uses an observational design to analyse data from the Oneplus trial. Descriptive statistics and proportions were calculated with 95% confidence intervals. Stratified univariable and multivariable logistic regression analysis were performed.

RESULTS

A total of 1430 births performed with CMA were included in the study. Less experienced primary midwives reported professional learning to a higher degree (< 2 years, 76%) than the more experienced (> 20 years, 22%). A similar but less pronounced pattern was seen for the second midwives. Duration of the intervention ≥ 15 min improved learning across groups, especially for the least experienced primary midwives. The colleague's level of experience was found to be of importance for primary midwives with less than five years' work experience, whereas for second midwives it was also important in their mid to late career. Reciprocal feedback had more impact on learning for the primary midwife than the second midwife.

CONCLUSIONS

The study provides evidence that CMA has the potential to contribute with professional learning both for primary and second midwives, for all levels of work experience. We found that factors such as the colleague's work experience, the duration of CMA and reciprocal feedback influenced learning, but the importance of these factors were different for the primary and second midwife and varied depending on the level of work experience. The findings may have implications for future implementation of CMA and can be used to guide the practice.

The impact of emotionally challenging situations on medical students' professional identity formation

In their interactions with patients and health care professionals during work-based learning, medical students are known to experience emotionally challenging situations that can evoke negative feelings. Students have to manage these emotions. Students learn and develop their professional identity formation through interactions with patients and members of the healthcare teams. Earlier studies have highlighted the issues involved with processing emotionally challenging situations, although studies concerning learning and professional identity formation in response to these experiences are rare. In this study, we explored medical students' experiences of emotionally challenging situations in work-based learning, and the impact these experiences had on forming medical students' professional identities. We conducted an analysis of narrative data (n = 85), using a constructivist grounded theory approach. The narratives were made up of medical students' reflective essays at the end of their education (tenth term). The analysis showed that students' main concern when facing emotionally challenging situations during their work-based education was the struggle to achieve and maintain a professional approach. They reported different strategies for managing their feelings and how these strategies led to diverse consequences. In the process, students also described arriving at insights into their own personal needs and shortcomings. We consider this development of self-awareness and resulting self-knowledge to be an important part of the continuously ongoing socialization process of forming a professional identity. Thus, experiencing emotionally challenging situations can be considered a unique and invaluable opportunity, as well as a catalyst for students' development. We believe that highlighting the impact of emotions in medical education can constitute an important contribution to knowledge about the process of professional identity formation. This knowledge can enable faculty to provide students with more effective and sufficient support, facilitating their journey in becoming physicians.

Relational care and epistemic injustice

The philosophical underpinnings of primary care have been examined from several perspectives in recent years. In two previous articles, we have argued that a relational view of autonomy is better matched to the primary care setting than others, and that view is mainly formed from the descriptors of its practice. Here we develop that analysis further, linking it to other relevant theory: the experience of human suffering and epistemic injustice. We argue that relational care is fundamental to ameliorating epistemic injustice and that relationships are integral to ethical practice, rather than being distinct. We propose that personalised care as described in the NHS Long Term Plan is not possible without addressing epistemic injustice and therefore without reconsidering our existing normative ethical frameworks.

How workplace learning is put into practice: contrasting the medical and nursing contexts from the perspective of teaching and learning regimes

Health professions education places significant emphasis on learning in the clinical environment. While experiences of workplace learning have been extensively investigated, practices of workplace learning explored through field work have been less utilized. The theoretical framework of teaching and learning regimes acknowledges aspects of power and conflict in its consideration of what guides teachers and learners in their practice of workplace learning. This study aimed to explore practices of workplace learning in the two adjacent healthcare professions; medicine and nursing. We adopted an ethnographic qualitative design. Field observations and follow-up interviews were performed in three clinical departments and the data set comprised 12 full days of observations and 16 formal follow-up interviews. Thematic analysis was performed deductively according to the theoretical framework. Four teaching and learning regimes were found in the data. In the medical context, workplace learning was either practiced as reproduction of current practice or through stimulation of professional development. In the nursing context, workplace learning was either based on development of partnership between student and supervisor or on conditional membership in a professional community. The medical and nursing contexts demonstrated varying underpinnings and assumptions relating to teaching and learning. The respective practices of workplace learning in the medical and nursing context appear to hold substantial differences which might have implications for how we understand practices of workplace learning. We further conclude that the theoretical framework of teaching and learning regimes in this study proved useful in exploring workplace learning.

Examining the nexus between medical education and complexity: a systematic review to inform practice and research

BACKGROUND

Medical education is a multifarious endeavour integrating a range of pedagogies and philosophies. Complexity as a science or theory ('complexity') signals a move away from a reductionist paradigm to one which appreciates that interactions in multi-component systems, such as healthcare systems, can result in adaptive and emergent outcomes. This examination of the nexus between medical education and complexity theory aims to discover ways that complexity theory can inform medical education and medical education research.

METHODS

A structured literature review was conducted to examine the nexus between medical education and complexity; 5 databases were searched using relevant terms. Papers were included if they engaged fully with complexity as a science or theory and were significantly focused on medical education. All types of papers were included, including conceptual papers (e.g. opinion and theoretical discussions), case studies, program evaluations and empirical research. A narrative and thematic synthesis was undertaken to create a deep understanding of the use of complexity in medical education.

RESULTS

Eighty-three papers were included; the majority were conceptual papers. The context and theoretical underpinnings of complexity as a relevant theory for medical education were identified. Bibliographic and temporal observations were noted regarding the entry of complexity into medical education. Complexity was relied upon as a theoretical framework for empirical studies covering a variety of elements within medical education including: knowledge and learning theories; curricular, program and faculty development; program evaluation and medical education research; assessment and admissions; professionalism and leadership; and learning for systems, about systems and in systems.

DISCUSSION

There is a call for greater use of theory by medical educators. Complexity within medical education is established, although not widespread. Individualistic cultures of medicine and comfort with reductionist epistemologies challenges its introduction. However, complexity was found to be a useful theory across a range of areas by a limited number of authors and is increasingly used by medical educators and medical education researchers. This review has further conceptualized how complexity is being used to support medical education and medical education research.

CONCLUSION

This literature review can assist in understanding how complexity can be useful in medical educationalists' practice.

'When a patient chooses to die at home, that's what they want… comfort, home': Brilliance in community-based palliative care nursing

INTRODUCTION

To redress the scholarly preoccupation with gaps, issues, and problems in palliative care, this article extends previous findings on what constitutes brilliant palliative care to ask what brilliant nursing practices are supported and promoted.

METHODS

This study involved the methodology of POSH-VRE, which combines positive organisational scholarship in healthcare (POSH) with video-reflexive ethnography (VRE). From August 2015 to May 2017, inclusive, nurses affiliated with a community health service who delivered palliative care, contributed to this study as co-researchers (n = 4) or participants (n = 20). Patients who received palliative care (n = 30) and carers (n = 16) contributed as secondary participants, as they were part of observed instances of palliative care. With a particular focus on the practices and experiences that exceeded expectations and brought joy and delight, the study involved capturing video-recordings of community-based palliative care in situ; reflexively analysing the recordings with the nurses; as well as ethnography to witness, experience, and understand practices and experiences. Data were analysed, teleologically, to clarify what brilliant practices were supported and promoted.

RESULTS

Brilliant community-based palliative care nursing largely involved maintaining normality in patients' and carers' lives. The nurses demonstrated this by masking the clinical aspects of their role, normalising these aspects, and appreciating alternative 'normals'.

CONCLUSION

Redressing the scholarly preoccupation with gaps, issues, and problems in palliative care, this article demonstrates how what is ordinary is extraordinary. Specifically, given the intrusiveness and abnormalising effects of technical clinical interventions, brilliant community-based palliative care can be realised when nurses enact practices that serve to promote a patient or carer to normality.

PATIENT OR PUBLIC CONTRIBUTION

Patients and carers contributed to this study as participants, while nurses contributed to this study as co-researchers in the conduct of the study, the analysis and interpretation of the data, and the preparation of the article.

Technical, Non-Technical, or Both? A Scoping Review of Skills in Simulation-Based Surgical Training

OBJECTIVE

Technical and non-technical skills are traditionally investigated separately in simulation-based surgical training (SBST). Recent literature has indicated an interrelation of these skills, but a clear relationship is yet to be established. This scoping review aimed to identify published literature on the use of both technical and non-technical learning objectives in SBST and investigate how the entities are related. Additionally, this scoping study reviewed the literature with the aim of mapping how publications on technical and non-technical skills within SBST have changed over time.

DESIGN

We conducted a scoping review using the 5 step framework by Arksey and O'Malley and reported our results according to the PRISMA guidelines for scoping reviews. Four databases, PubMed, Web of Science, Embase and Cochrane Library, were systematically searched for empirical studies on SBST. Studies within surgical training addressing both technical and non-technical learning objectives and presenting primary data were included for further analysis.

RESULTS

Our scoping review identified 3144 articles on SBST published between 1981 and 2021. During our analysis, an emphasis on technical skills training in published literature was identified. However, recent years have seen an immense increase of publications within either technical or non-technical skills. A similar trend is seen in publications addressing both technical and non-technical. In total, 106 publications addressed both technical and non-technical learning objectives and were included for further analysis. Only 45 of the included articles addressed the relationship between technical and non-technical skills. These articles mainly focused on the effect of non-technical skills on technical skills.

CONCLUSIONS

Though literature on the relationship between technical and non-technical skills remains scarce, the included studies on technical skills and non-technical skills such as mental training suggest such a relationship exists. This implies that the separation of the skill sets is not necessarily beneficial for the outcome of SBST. A shift towards seeing technical and non-technical skills as intertwined may enhance learning outcomes from SBST.

Mapping Health Professions Education: Using Complexity Science to Make Sense of Learning Through Electronic Consultations

Phenomena studied within health professions education are often complex and multifaceted. This article describes a complexity science-informed theoretical framework that was developed for exploring how electronic consultations support learning among primary care providers, as well as within the larger organizations or systems in which they practice. This framework enables researchers to investigate learning occurring simultaneously at multiple levels (including individuals and social groups), without simplistically conflating levels or theories. The various levels of learning and associated theories are illustrated using examples from electronic consultations. This complexity science-inspired framework can be used for studying learning in complex, multilayered systems.

Professional socialisation and professional fit: Theoretical approaches to address student learning and teaching in speech-language pathology

Purpose: The sociocultural and historical context and membership of the speech-language pathology (SLP) profession underpins our norms of practice and our discourses. This context also informs and defines the ways that we practice today, including who we legitimise to enter our profession and why. In this paper, we used theory as a tool to critically explore how this socioculturally constituted knowledge and practice influences how students experience learning in SLP practice placements.Method: We used the theory of Legitimate Peripheral Participation (1991) as a conceptual framework to interpret qualitative data from two separate programs of research that had explored the phenomena of student learning in SLP practice placements.Result: The analysis cast light on how our understanding and expectations of SLP students' learning and competency development in placements is recursive and strongly legitimised in our profession. Students adjust to accommodate the professional knowledges, practices and expectations they encounter in their placements. This facilitates the perpetuation of practices proffered by the majority culture.Conclusion: The use of theory allowed us to explore the phenomena of student learning in placements in a new light, which unmasked new understandings of the longstanding challenge to increase diversity in the SLP community.

Role of social comparison in preparedness for practice as a junior doctor in Singapore: a longitudinal qualitative study

OBJECTIVES

To date, most research on medical graduates' preparedness for practice has conceptualised preparedness as something possessed by the individual. However, new doctors work within social settings with other people and, given this, we argue that preparedness has a social and comparative dimension. The aim of this paper is to explore medical students'/graduates' self-assessments of their preparedness for practice using the lens of social comparison theory.

SETTING

We invited medical students from one of Singapore's three medical schools who were in their final-year Student Assistantship Programme to participate in semi-structured interviews, and follow-up interviews 6 months later when they were working as junior doctors. Data was collected from two cohorts, in 2018 and 2019. Initial analysis of interview transcripts was inductive and thematic. Social comparison theory was used for subsequent theory-driven analysis.

PARTICIPANTS

31 participants took part, of whom 21 also engaged in follow-up interviews.

RESULTS

We identified three uses of social comparison: as coping strategy to manage uncertainties in transitions where there was no formal, objective testing of their performance; as a means to confirm their self-perceived preparedness (upwards or downwards, eg, being better or worse prepared than comparator others); and as the basis for decision-making (eg, changing career choices).

CONCLUSIONS

Senior medical students and newly-graduated doctors compare themselves with peers and near-peers in terms of prior learning and current performance to evaluate and understand their own performance at work. Future studies need to examine further how the feeling of preparedness or unpreparedness generated from social comparisons may affect subsequent clinical performance and professional development.

A Matter of Trust: Online Proctored Exams and the Integration of Technologies of Assessment in Medical Education

ISSUE

 Technology is pervasive in medicine, but we too rarely examine how it shapes assessment, learning, knowledge, and performance. Cultures of assessment also shape identities, social relations, and the knowledge and behavior recognized as legitimate by a profession. Therefore, the combination of technology and assessment within medical education is worthy of review. Online proctoring services have become more prevalent during the Covid-19 pandemic, as a means of continuing high-stakes invigilated examinations online. With criticisms about increased surveillance, discrimination, and the outsourcing of control to commercial vendors, is this simply "moving exams online", or are there more serious implications? What can this extreme example tell us about how our technologies of assessment influence relationships between trainees and medical education institutions?

EVIDENCE

 We combine postdigital and postphenomenology approaches to analyze the written component of the 2020 online proctored United Kingdom Royal College of Physicians (MRCP) membership exam. We examine the scripts, norms, and trust relations produced through this example of online proctoring, and then locate them in historical and economic contexts. We find that the proctoring service projects a false objectivity that is undermined by the tight script with which examinees must comply in an intensified norm of surveillance, and by the interpretation of digital data by unseen human proctors. Nonetheless, such proctoring services are promoted by an image of data-driven innovation, a rhetoric of necessity in response to a growing problem of online cheating, and an aversion, within medical education institutions, to changing assessment formats (and thus the need to accept different forms of knowledge as legitimate).

IMPLICATIONS

 The use of online proctoring technology by medical education institutions intensifies established norms, already present within examinations, of surveillance and distrust. Moreover, it exacerbates tensions between conflicting agendas of commercialization, accountability, and the education of trustworthy professionals. Our analysis provides an example of why it is important to stop and consider the holistic implications of introducing technological "solutions", and to interrogate the intersection of technology and assessment practices in relation to the wider goals of medical education.

Widening how we see the impact of culture on learning, practice and identity development in clinical environments

As part of this State of the Science series on Self, Society and Situation, we focus on how we might see the situation of the workplace as a learning environment in the future. Research to date into how health professionals learn while working in clinical workplace environments has mostly focused on the supervisor-trainee relationship or on the interaction between the affordances of a workplace and the receptiveness of trainees. However, the wider environment has not received as much focus-though frequently mentioned, it is seldom investigated. We suggest there is a need to embrace the wider institution factors, recognise and acknowledge an organisation's values and culture as they impact on clinical learning in order to work with these, not around them or ignore them, to make what may be tacit visible through reflection and observation and to embrace a range of perspectives on culture.

International trainer perceptions of simulation-based learning: a qualitative study

OBJECTIVES

 This study examined trainer perceptions of simulation-based learning for Continuing Professional Development in international settings.

METHODS

A qualitative research methodology was used to gain insight into trainer perceptions. Seventeen international physician trainers involved in simulation training in cardiovascular catheterization and intervention were interviewed. An inductive thematic analysis was performed following steps described by Braun and Clarke; researchers inductively approached, and then carefully dissected the transcripts into individual stories, grounded the problems, and explored themes.

RESULTS

Trainer perceptions are largely aligned with learning theories, even though they were not specifically educated in simulation-based learning and program design principles in advance. Trainers perceive their primary role as facilitators to be most important and consider structuring sessions, facilitating group learning, and stimulating reflection to be crucial themes in simulation-based learning. They believe that building trust is an underlying principle to function in their role and feel responsible for being prepared to improve trainee satisfaction as adult learners. Trainers believe that learning from making mistakes is an important mechanism in simulation-based learning, but they give less attention to giving feedback.

CONCLUSIONS

Trainers with basic training in facilitation skills in a classroom may unconsciously follow teacher-student instructional models with which they are familiar. This study confirms that trainers in simulation-based learning need pedagogical and facilitating skills to guide trainees and facilitate group processes. Educational training for trainers should include building trust and giving feedback in a more explicit place. In future studies, a mixed-method methodology is suggested to evaluate multi-layered complexities of educational practices.

Theory in quality improvement and patient safety education: A scoping review

INTRODUCTION

Theory plays an important role in education programming and research. However, its use in quality improvement and patient safety education has yet to be fully characterized. The authors undertook a scoping review to examine the use of theory in quality improvement and patient safety education.

METHODS

Eligible articles used theory to inform the design or study of a quality improvement or patient safety curriculum. The authors followed scoping review methodology and searched articles referenced in 20 systematic reviews of quality improvement and patient safety education, or articles citing one of these reviews, and hand searched eligible article references. Data analysis involved descriptive and interpretive summaries of theories used and the perspectives the theories offered.

RESULTS

Eligibility criteria were met by 28 articles, and 102 articles made superficial mention of theory. Eligible articles varied in professional group, learning stage and journal type. Theories fell into two broad categories: learning theories (n = 20) and social science theories (n = 11). Theory was used in the design (n = 12) or study (n = 17) of quality improvement and patient safety education. The range of theories shows the opportunity afforded by using more than one type of theory.

DISCUSSION

Theory can guide decisions regarding quality improvement and patient safety education practices or play a role in selecting a methodology or lens through which to study educational processes and outcomes. Educators and researchers should make deliberate choices around the use of theory that relates to aspects of an educational program that they seek to illuminate.

COGConnect: A new visual resource for teaching and learning effective consulting

OBJECTIVE

Consultation skills are essential to clinical practice and, when effective, can facilitate diagnoses and improve patient satisfaction. Various models exist to facilitate consultation teaching. These can be prescriptive, a challenge to apply in clinical settings and are often designed for primary care. In redesigning our entire curriculum, we sought to create a new visual, digital, resource for consultation teaching, aligned with statements from the UK Council for Clinical Communication (UKCCC), and suitable for the evolving expectations of patients, clinicians and the UK NHS, in 21st century medicine.

METHODS

We conducted a literature review encompassing teaching methods, NHS Priorities, patients' priorities, lifestyle interventions and practitioner resilience. COGConnect was designed iteratively through consultation with a graphic designer, health psychologists, a range of clinicians, and a consultation expert, and has evolved through extensive use in our new "effective consulting" course in primary and secondary care.

RESULTS

COGConnect is deliberately visual, iterative, bi-directional and multi-phasic. The central image of COGConnect is two persons in connection; the floating cogs suggesting an encounter of different agents who must adapt their cog-connection in terms of speed, direction and dimension. Around this image we place five core values. The consultation phases are represented by ten colourful cogs, with important additions including 'formulating', 'activating' and 'integrating'.

CONCLUSION

COGConnect builds on the strengths of existing frameworks and provides a strong visual resource suitable for digital learning. It offers greater emphasis on explicit clinical reasoning, activation of patient self-care and learning from the interaction. Having become the de facto resource for consultation skills training across primary and secondary care in our institution, the next phase is to develop the COGConnect.info website and a programme of formal evaluation.

The wolf you feed: Challenging intraprofessional workplace-based education norms

CONTEXT

The trajectory towards becoming a medical professional is strongly situated within the clinical workplace. Through participatory engagement, medical trainees learn to address complex health care issues through collaboration with the interprofessional health care team. To help explain learning and teaching dynamics within the clinical workplace, many scholars have relied on socio-cultural learning theories. In the field of medical education, this research has largely adopted a limited interpretation of a crucial dimension within socio-cultural learning theory: the expert who guides the trainee into the community is almost exclusively from the same profession. We contend that this narrow interpretation is not necessary. This limited focus is one we choose to maintain-be that choice intentional or implicit. In this cross-cutting edge paper, we argue that choosing an interprofessional orientation towards workplace learning and guidance may better prepare medical trainees for their future role in health care practice.

METHODS

By applying Communities of Practice and Landscapes of Practice , and supported by empirical examples, we demonstrate how medical trainees are not solely on a trajectory towards the Community of Physician Practice (CoPP) but also on a trajectory towards various Landscapes of Healthcare Practice (LoHCP). We discuss some of the barriers present within health care organisations and professions that have likely inhibited adoption of the broader LoHCP perspective. We suggest three perspectives that might help to deliberately and meaningfully incorporate the interprofessional learning and teaching dynamic within the medical education continuum.

CONCLUSION

Systematically incorporating Landscapes of Competence, Assessment, and Guidance in workplace-based education-in addition to our current intraprofessional approach-can better prepare medical trainees for their roles within the LoHCP. By advocating and researching this interprofessional perspective, we can embark on a journey towards fully harnessing and empowering the health care team within workplace-based education.

Health professions education scholarship: The emergence, current status, and future of a discipline in its own right

Medical education, as a domain of scholarly pursuit, has enjoyed a remarkably rapid development in the past 70 years and is now more commonly known as health professions education (HPE) scholarship. Evidenced by a solid increase of publications, numbers of specialized journals, professional associations, national and international conferences, academies for medical educators, masters and doctoral courses, and the establishment of many units of HPE scholarship, the domain of HPE education scholarship has matured into a scholarly discipline in its own right. In this contribution, the author reviews the developments of the field from Boyer's four criteria that determine scholarship: discovery, integration, application, and teaching. Born mid-20th century, and in the first decades developed in the predominant area of physician education, HPE scholarship has matured, with increasing breadth, depth, and volume of scholars, publications, conferences, and dedicated centers for research and development. The author concludes that, given the infrastructure that has emerged, HPE can arguably be considered a discipline in its own right. This academic question may not matter hugely for practices of scholarly work in this domain, and any stance in this academic debate inevitably reflects a personal view, but the author would support the view of health professions scholarship as being a unique niche, with inherent dependence on both medical and other health professional sciences, on the one hand, and social sciences, including educational sciences, on the other hand.

An act of performance: Exploring residents' decision-making processes to seek help

CONTEXT

Residents are expected to ask for help when feeling insufficiently confident or competent to act in patients' best interests. While previous studies focused on the perspective of supervisor-resident relationships in residents' help-seeking decisions, attention for how the workplace environment and, more specifically, other health care team members influence these decisions is limited. Using a sociocultural lens, this study aimed to explore how residents' decision-making processes to seek help are shaped by their workplace environment.

METHODS

Through a constructivist grounded theory methodology, we purposively and theoretically sampled 18 residents: 9 juniors (postgraduate year 1/2) and 9 seniors (postgraduate year 5/6) at Amsterdam University Medical Centers. Using semi-structured interviews, participating residents' decision-making processes to seek help during patient care delivery were explored. Data collection and analysis were iterative; themes were identified using constant comparative analysis.

RESULTS

Residents described their help-seeking decision-making processes as an 'act of performance': they considered how asking for help could potentially impact their assessments. They described this act of performance as the product of an internal 'balancing act' with at its core the non-negotiable priority for providing safe and high-quality patient care. With this in mind, residents weighed up demonstrating the ability to work independently, maintaining credibility and becoming an accepted member of the health care team when deciding to seek help. This 'balancing act' was influenced by sociocultural characteristics of the learning environment, residents' relationships with supervisors and the perceived approachability of other health care team members.

CONCLUSIONS

This study suggests that sociocultural forces influence residents to experience help-seeking as an act of performance. Especially, a safe learning environment resulting from constructive relationships with supervisors and the approachability of other health care team members lowered the barriers to seek help. Supervisors could address these barriers by having regular conversations with residents about when to seek help.

Re-visioning clinical reasoning, or stepping out from the skull

THE PROBLEM

Progress in teaching and learning clinical reasoning depends upon more sophisticated modelling of the reasoning process itself. Current accounts of clinical reasoning, grounded in experimental psychology, show a bias towards situating reasoning inside the skull, further reduced to neural processes signified by imaging. Such a model is necessary but not sufficient to explain the clinical reasoning process where it fails to embrace cognition extended to the environment and social contexts.

A SOLUTION

Sufficiency for a model of clinical reasoning must include dialogues between doctor, patient, and colleagues, including the complex influences of history and culture, where artefacts and semiotics such as computers, testing, and narrative structures augment cognition. Here, 'extended' cognition is configured as an outside-in process of 'sensemaking' or 'adaptive expertise'.

THE FUTURE

Current 'predictive processing' cognition models place emphasis on anticipatory cognition, where memory is reconfigured as active reconstruction rather than recall and recognition. Such an 'ecological perception' or 'externalistic' model provides a counter to the current dominant paradigm of 'ego-logical' cognitive reasoning - the latter, again, abstracted from context and located inside the skull. New models of clinical reasoning as an open, dynamic, nonlinear, complex system are called for.

A Unified Theoretical Framework of Learning Theories to Inform and Guide Public Health Continuing Medical Education Research and Practice

Continuing medical education (CME) emerged at the start of the 20th century as a means of maintaining clinical competence among health care practitioners. However, evidence indicates that CME is often poorly developed and inappropriately used. Consequently, there has been increasing interest in the literature in evaluating wider contexts at play in CME development and delivery. In this article, the authors present a unified theoretical framework, grounded in learning theories, to explore the role of contextual factors in public health CME for health care practitioners. Discussion with pedagogical experts together with a narrative review of learning theories within medical and social science literature informed the framework's development. The need to consider sociocultural theories of learning within medical education restricted suitable theories to those that recognized contexts beyond the individual learner; adopted a systems approach to evaluate interactions between contexts and learner; and considered learning as more than mere acquisition of knowledge. Through a process of rigorous critical analysis, two theoretical models emerged as contextually appropriate: Biggs principle of constructive alignment and Bronfenbrenner bioecological model of human development. Biggs principle offers theoretical clarity surrounding interactive factors that encourage lifelong learning, whereas the Bronfenbrenner model expands on these factor's roles across multiple system levels. The authors explore how unification into a single framework complements each model while elaborating on its fundamental and practical applications. The unified theoretical framework presented in this article addresses the limitations of isolated frameworks and allows for the exploration of the applicability of wider learning theories in CME research.

Getting outside the box: exploring role fluidity in interprofessional student groups through the lens of activity theory

Health professionals' roles and scopes often overlap, creating a need for role clarity in interprofessional teamwork. Yet, such clarity does not mean roles are fixed within teams and some literature suggests role flexibility can enhance team functioning. Interprofessional practice competencies and learning activities often emphasize knowledge and definition of roles, but rarely attend to the dynamic nature of roles and influential contextual factors. This study explores role fluidity in interprofessional student groups using an activity theory framework. Using a collective instrumental case study approach, the authors examine the fluidity of one physical therapy (PT) student's role within 3 different interprofessional (medical, pharmacy, PT) student groups completing nursing home patient care plans. Field notes, group debriefing interviews, and care plans were collected and coded from all care planning sessions. Codes mapped to group-specific activity systems that compared role-influencing interactions and tensions. The PT student's role fluidity varied in each group's activity system, influenced primarily by system tensions from implicit rules (e.g., encouraging questions), division of labor (e.g., rigid profession-based task assignment), and tool use (e.g., computers). Attention to modifiable system elements, such as tool use and explicit rules of inclusivity, could foster role fluidity and improve interprofessional teamwork and learning environments.

The change laboratory in medical education: Two examples of tackling contradictory challenges

CONTEXT

Medical education and workplace learning is bound to develop through tensions between providing high quality patient care and providing training of the future specialist healthcare workforce. This paper on the Change Laboratory and the theoretical framework supporting it, shows examples on how to explore inherent and contradictory tensions in medical education and healthcare and use them as a driving force for change. We argue that the traditional tools and theories for change and fixing tensions are inadequate and therefore suggest an alternative strategy found in Cultural-Historical Activity Theory (CHAT) and the Change Laboratory method.

METHODS

The Change Laboratory intervention method builds on the theoretical framework of CHAT and specifically the theory of expansive learning. The Change Laboratory intervention method uses well-defined steps for participants in collaboration with researchers/facilitators to co-construct and develop new ways of going about their work practice.

RESULTS

Drawing on our own research on implementing the Change Laboratory intervention method we present two case examples of interventions in respectively a Finnish surgical unit and a Danish paediatric outpatient clinic.

CONCLUSIONS

The Change Laboratory intervention offers ways to systematically leverage tensions in medical education and thus could be effective in developing and designing organisational and professional change. It is not a quick fix solution as participators must be motivated and engaged in uncovering inherent contradictions in their activity systems (workplace) and get familiar with the concepts and theory underlying the intervention and its procedures. Profound knowledge and transformative agency emerges when participants and facilitators/researchers are given the time and opportunity to analyse both historical practice, current data on practice, and organisational issues collaboratively in order to envision and redesign their practice and learning environment.

Micro-relational interdependencies are the essence of teaching and learning in the OR

CONTEXT

In the high-stakes, time-critical environment of the operating room (OR), attendings and residents strive to complete safe, effective surgeries and ensure that learning occurs. Yet meaningful resident participation often receives less attention, and that impedes residents' ability to learn and achieve autonomous operative practice. We need a new conceptual framework for understanding progression to autonomous practice that can guide both faculty and residents. Thus, we sought a new conceptualisation of intraoperative teaching and learning (IOT&L) through the lens of Eraut's notion of informal workplace learning and Billett's theory of relational interdependence between social and individual agency.

METHODS

We viewed authentic examples of IOT&L in video and transcripts of live OR cases and interviews with participating attendings and residents. By systematically applying Eraut and Billet's theories to the transcripts and interviews, we developed concrete descriptions about how IOT&L occurs, categorised them into theory-based principles and derived a conceptualisation and related research ideas about IOT&L.

RESULTS

Established workplace learning theories frame IOT&L as socially negotiated processes transpiring in distinct interdependent interactions between residents' individual cognitive experiences and their OR social experiences that direct their learning. As the surgery unfolds, spontaneous events and the rules of surgery create opportunities for unplanned and informal learning. These authentic interrelated cognitive and social experiences are stimulated when residents reveal a learning need or attendings recognise a learning gap, and efforts ensue to bridge that gap. Through these minute distinct exchanges, labelled here as 'atomic' IOT&L, residents gain crucial knowledge and skill.

CONCLUSION

Framing authentic OR interactions between attendings and residents in terms of micro-relational interdependencies shows how granular teaching/learning exchanges yield high-value informal learning. To improve IOT&L, we must examine and change it at this fundamental level by using and testing this new theoretical conceptualisation. These insights produced ideas about IOT&L to test and research.

Embracing the collective through medical education

The journal Advances in Health Sciences Education: Theory and Practice has, under Geoff Norman's leadership, promoted a collaborative approach to investigating educationally-savvy and innovative health care practices, where academic medical educators can work closely with healthcare practitioners to improve patient care and safety. But in medical practice in particular this networked approach is often compromised by a lingering, historically conditioned pattern of heroic individualism (under the banner 'self help'). In an era promising patient-centredness and inter-professional practices, we must ask: 'when will medicine, and its informing agent medical education, embrace democratic habits and collectivism?' The symptom of lingering heroic individualism is particularly prominent in North American medical education. This is echoed in widespread resistance to a government-controlled public health, where the USA remains the only advanced economy that fails to provide universal health care. I track a resistance to collectivist medical-educational reform historically from a mid-nineteenth century nexus of influential thinkers who came, some unwittingly, to shape North American medical education within a Protestant-Capitalist individualist tradition. This tradition still lingers, where some doctors recall a fictional 'golden age' of medical practice and education, actually long since eclipsed by fluid inter-professional health care team practices. I cast this tension between conservative traditions of individualism and progressive collectivism as a political issue.

Harmony or dissonance? The affordances of palliative care learning for emerging professional identity

INTRODUCTION

Patient demographics demand physicians who are competent in and embrace palliative care as part of their professional identity. Published literature describes ways that learners acquire knowledge, skills and attitudes for palliative care. These studies are, however, limited by their focus on the individual where learning is about acquisition. Viewing learning as a process of becoming through the interplay of individual, social relationships and cultures, offers a novel perspective from which to explore the affordances for professional identity development.

METHODS

Qualitative narrative methods were used to explore 45 narratives of memorable learning (NMLs) for palliative care recounted by 14 graduating family medicine residents in one family medicine residency program. Thematic and narrative analyses identified the affordances that support and constrain the dynamic emergence of professional identity.

RESULTS

Participants recounted affordances that supported and/or constrained their learning acting on personal (e.g. past experiences of death), interpersonal (e.g. professional support) and systemic (e.g. patient continuity) levels. Opportunities for developing professional identity were dynamic: factors acted in harmony, were misaligned, or colliding to support or constrain an emerging professional identity for palliative care practice.

CONCLUSION

Findings highlight how individual factors interplay with interpersonal and structural conditions in the workplace in dynamic and emergent ways that may support or constrain the emergence of professional identity. Viewing learning as a process of becoming allows teachers, curriculum developers and administrators to appreciate the complexity and importance of the interplay between the individual and the workplace affordances to create environments that nurture professional identity for palliative care practice.

Improving pediatric problem-based learning sessions in undergraduate and graduate medical education

PURPOSE OF REVIEW

Problem-based learning (PBL) sessions have become common alternatives to traditional didactic-style sessions in medical education, including within pediatric education. The creation and execution of PBL sessions, however, can vary among institutions and even between educators at a given institution. Coupling the personal experiences of a recently-graduated medical student with that of a knowledgeable medical educator, the authors sought to analyze two PBL session experiences of the medical student during her second year with the goal of pinpointing specific elements that add value for both learners and facilitators.

RECENT FINDINGS

Through this analysis, the authors propose enhancements to PBL sessions that may make them more optimal for developing knowledge in pediatric medicine. These include utilizing an interactive video of the clinical problem to more uniformly assess the learner's knowledge gaps, supporting the creation and evolution of peer-to-peer learning communities, and helping to educate facilitators in how to guide dialogue in this type of educational setting.

SUMMARY

The PBL enhancements identified by the authors provide educators with innovative suggestions to better engage pediatric trainees in building social capital, acquiring knowledge, and helping learners retain that knowledge beyond their assessments.

Using quality improvement tools to enhance workplace learning in an anaesthesia unit

BACKGROUND

In healthcare, quality improvement (QI) tools are predominantly used to address human, system and process factors to improve clinical care. We believe that QI tools can also be used to address similar factors in medical education, to facilitate improvement in learning outcomes and competencies for new junior doctors in a postgraduate medical education program in our anaesthesia and critical care unit.

METHODS

A stepwise competency checklist was devised to guide the learning and monitor the percentage who had completed the required learning activities and tests at the end of each month. This was tabulated as monthly competency scores, and served as a measure of effectiveness of the education program. QI tools, namely the Fishbone diagram and Pareto chart, were used to identify modifiable root causes and prioritise interventions.

RESULTS

Monthly competency scores ranged 30-50% at baseline, and improved to 60-75% after 6 months, with the implementation of a series of QI interventions.

CONCLUSION

QI tools were utilised to guide education interventions, with consequent improvement in the monthly competency scores of our junior doctors. Focused improvement cycles that are aligned to learning outcomes are key to the success of using QI tools in medical education.

Education Research: A Qualitative Study on Student Perceptions of Neurology and Psychiatry Clerkship Integration

OBJECTIVE

To explore student perceptions of the feasibility of neurology and psychiatry clerkship integration, including clinical education and competency evaluation, as there has been a call to improve undergraduate medical education integration of the disciplines to better develop physicians that can address nervous system disorders.

METHOD

Via a constructivist grounded theory approach, we carried out 5 focus groups in 2016-2017 with 28 medical students who completed both independent clerkships. Investigator triangulation was used with iterative interpretation comparisons, and themes were identified using constant comparative analysis.

RESULTS

Three major themes arose: (1) combining the clerkships was not favorable as students need sufficient time to delve deeper into each discipline; (2) students did not observe an integrated clinical approach by faculty; (3) there is positive value to making links between neurology and psychiatry for effective patient care.

CONCLUSIONS

Students emphasized the importance of making stronger links between the 2 disciplines for their learning and to improve patient care; however, they did not observe this clinical approach in the workplace. Students perceived that integration of neurology and psychiatry clerkships should occur via increased affinity of the complementary discipline by trainees and faculty in each specialty.

Navigating and understanding organisational complexity in health services: The value of POSH-VRE

This methodological article introduces positive organisational scholarship in healthcare and video reflexive ethnography (POSH-VRE) as a methodology to cut through the challenges of accessing and engaging organisations for research. We demonstrate how POSH-VRE can open space to navigate and better understand organisational complexity and build capacity. Organisational complexity denotes the interrelated components of a system. POSH-VRE can be helpful within complex organisations, such as health services, because it focuses on positive healthcare practices and experiences. We exemplify this with reference to a study on brilliant community-based palliative care. Using fieldnotes and video-recordings, we reveal the value of positive recognition – or celebration; video-cameras; and courtesy, whereby we adapted to different contexts. POSH-VRE can be of scholarly, methodological, and organisational value. It enables researchers to navigate organisational complexity and co-construct findings with nonacademic experts. Furthermore, it can encourage nonacademic experts to improve practice by learning from their own capacities to navigate organisational complexity.

Understanding the relationship between GP training and improved patient care - a qualitative study of GP educators

INTRODUCTION

Previous research has highlighted the benefits of receiving care in a postgraduate GP training practice including improved patient satisfaction, more appropriate secondary care usage, cancer diagnosis, and antibiotic prescribing. Whilst the influence of being registered in a postgraduate GP training practice on patient outcomes is modest relative to other factors such as deprivation, disease burden, demography, and ethnicity, the reasons for this benefit is not clear.

AIM

This study explores how GP trainers perceive engagement with clinical education influences patient care.

METHODS

Socio-cultural theories were used as a framework for guiding the research. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 11 GP educators. Interviews were recorded and transcribed verbatim. Data analysis involved thematic analysis.

RESULTS

GP educators identified four overarching themes that, for them, seemed to explain how clinical education mediates its influence on patient care. These included: influencing through (i) educational leadership; (ii) learners; (iii) the educational process; and (iv) educational standards.

DISCUSSION

Findings suggest that GP trainees have a significant effect on the learning environment, professional development of GP trainers, and patient care. The nature of the relationship between GP trainers and trainees appears far more bilateral than acknowledged in the apprenticeship model.

Critical Care Education Day: A Novel, Multidisciplinary, and Interactive Critical Care Education Session for Emergency Medicine Residents

Critical care medicine (CCM) is central to emergency medicine (EM) resident education. We feel that the traditional lecture format is not the ideal way to teach EM critical care, which requires integration and prioritization of diagnostic workup and team-based resuscitation under time pressure. We describe a novel critical care education day where an interactive, practical, and multidisciplinary critical care educational experience was provided for EM residents using case-based small-group sessions and fast-paced simulation.

How do undergraduate nursing students learn in the hospital setting? A scoping review of conceptualisations, operationalisations and learning activities

OBJECTIVES

Although clinical learning is pivotal for nursing education, the learning process itself and the terminology to address this topic remain underexposed in the literature. This study aimed to examine how concepts equivalent to 'learning in practice' are used and operationalised and which learning activities are reported in the nursing education literature. The final aim was to propose terminology for future studies.

DESIGN

The scoping framework proposed by Arksey and O'Malley was used to answer the research questions and address gaps in the literature. Two systematic searches were conducted in PubMed, EBSCO/ERIC and EBSCO/CINAHL between May and September 2018: first, to identify concepts equivalent to 'learning in practice' and, second, to find studies operationalising these concepts. Eligible articles were studies that examined the regular learning of undergraduate nursing students in the hospital setting. Conceptualisations, theoretical frameworks and operationalisations were mapped descriptively. Results relating to how students learn were synthesised using thematic analysis. Quality assessment was performed using the Critical Appraisal Skills Programme checklist.

RESULTS

From 9360 abstracts, 17 articles were included. Five studies adopted a general, yet not explained, synonym for learning in practice, and the other approaches focused on the social, unplanned or active nature of learning. All studies used a qualitative approach. The small number of studies and medium study quality hampered a thorough comparison of concepts. The synthesis of results revealed five types of learning activities, acknowledged by an expert panel, in which autonomy, interactions and cognitive processing were central themes.

CONCLUSIONS

Both theoretical approaches and learning activities of the current body of research fit into experiential learning theories, which can be used to guide and improve future studies. Gaps in the literature include formal and informal components of learning, the relation between learning and learning outcomes and the interplay between behaviour and cognitive processing.

Students' perspectives of early and gradual transitioning between simulation and clinical training in dentistry and their suggestions for future course improvements

INTRODUCTION

Students' perspectives on their learning environment are essential for course development and to enhance the educational experience. In dentistry, there is limited understanding of how students perceive their early clinical training. This study presents students' views on their gradual progression from simulation to patient care and describes the approaches they followed to adapt during this transitioning phase.

METHODS

A qualitative study design was employed, drawing on focus group discussions conducted with students from the Division of Dentistry at the University of Manchester. The discussions were transcribed verbatim. Data collection and coding process followed the principles of thematic analysis and the inductive approach.

FINDINGS

The sample was comprised of 28 undergraduate students, across four focus groups. Thematic analysis generated three key categories: students' immediate perspectives of early clinical training, students' approaches to adapting to the transitioning period and students' suggestions for future improvement. Further, subthemes emerged describing the positive gains which students recognised from their early and gradual clinical involvement and training. Despite experiencing stress and uncertainty, related to insufficient knowledge and immature multitasking skills in the early years of dental training, students were motivated by the clinical environment and identified several ways to adapt to it and enhance their learning. These included additional self-learning resources and simulation opportunities; inter-year group learning activities and further peer support and mentoring.

CONCLUSION

The current study provided insights into students' experiences of learning through early clinical involvement and gradual transitioning between simulation and clinical environments in dentistry. The findings revealed that whilst students appreciated being involved in the clinic at an early stage, they had to adopt a variety of approaches to link their knowledge, learning and skills between the simulation and clinical environments. Students' suggested additional activities to link the learning gap between the two environments and to enrich their learning.

Intra- and interprofessional practices through fresh eyes: a qualitative analysis of medical students' early workplace experiences

BACKGROUND

Professional identities are influenced by experiences in the clinical workplace including socialisation processes that may be hidden from academic faculty and potentially divergent from formal curricula. With the current educational emphasis on complexity, preparedness for practice, patient safety and team-working it is necessary to evaluate and respond to what students are learning about collaborative practices during their clinical placements.

METHODS

394 second year medical students at a London medical school were invited to submit a short formative essay as part of their coursework describing, evaluating and reflecting on their experiences of how healthcare professionals work together. Their experiences were derived from having spent two days each week for 25 weeks in clinical contexts across primary and secondary care. We consented 311 participants and used a Consensual Qualitative Research approach to analyse these essays, creating a 'students-eye view' of intra- and interprofessional practices in the workplace.

RESULTS

We identified four overarching themes in students' essays:Theme 1: analyses of contextual factors driving team tensions including staff shortages, shifting teams, and infrastructural issues;Theme 2: observations of hierarchical and paternalistic attitudes and behaviours;Theme 3: respect for team members' ability to manage and mitigate tensions and attitudes; andTheme 4: take-forward learning including enthusiasm for quality improvement and system change.

CONCLUSIONS

Students are being socialised into a complex, hierarchical, pressurised clinical workplace and experience wide variations in professional behaviours and practices. They articulate a need to find constructive ways forward in the interests of staff wellbeing and patient care. We present educational recommendations including providing safe reflective spaces, using students' lived experience as raw material for systems thinking and quality improvement, and closing the feedback loop with placement sites on behalf of students.

Defining Patient Safety: a Student Perspective

BACKGROUND

Patient safety is recognised as an important aspect of the undergraduate medical curriculum. However, packed medical curricula have been slow to evolve despite repeated mandates and large-scale tragedies resulting from unlearnt lessons. The aim of this work was to explore students' perspectives on patient safety to inform curriculum re-design.

METHODS

Using a qualitative approach, medical students from year 2 and year 4 of the undergraduate course were invited to participate in focus groups to consider: their personal conceptualisation of patient safety, their perceptions of patient safety education in the existing curriculum and their collective preferences for future teaching in this area. Transcripts of the focus groups were subjected to thematic analysis.

RESULTS

Six focus groups were convened with a total of 77 students. Thirteen major themes were identified which included conceptual ambiguity, healthcare culture, error theory, specific safety topics (such as infection prevention and control, medication safety, technical/procedural safety, communication and other non-technical skills), self-awareness, patient-centredness, low student morale and raising concerns. Students were more aware of technical than non-technical competence. They wanted learning aligned to the realities of practice, a clearer concept of patient safety and improved visibility of patient safety topics within an integrated curriculum.

CONCLUSIONS

Students are keen to engage with safety topics but frequently feel disempowered as future change agents. Educators need to advocate a clear definition of patient safety and consider the implication of the theory-practice gap on students' evolving attitudes.

Seeking coherence between 'mobile learning' applications and the everyday lives of medical residents

INTRODUCTION

The role of technology in health professions education has received increased research attention. Research has examined the interaction between humans and technology, focusing on the mutual influence between people and technology. Little attention has been given to the role of motivation and incentives in how learning technologies are used in relation to daily activities. This research aims to understand the relationship between medical-learning technology and its users.

METHODS

A mixed-method case study of a new medical-learning mobile application (app) for family medicine residents was undertaken at a Canadian university hospital. The Information Assessment Method is a custom-made app to help residents prepare for the College of Family Physicians of Canada licensing examination. Residents' use of the app was tracked over a 7-month period and individual, semi-structured interviews were conducted with users. Data were thematically analyzed and correlated with app use data.

RESULTS

Factors identified as shaping residents' mobile app use for learning, included: efficiency, mobility and resonance with life context; credibility of information retrieved; and relevance of content. Most influential was stage of residency. Second-year residents were more selective and strategic than first-year residents in their app use.

DISCUSSION

An emphasis on coherence between self-directed learning and externally dictated learning provides a framework for understanding the relationship between users and mobile-learning technology. This framework can guide the design, implementation and evaluation of learning interventions for healthcare professionals and learners.

The influence of complexity: a bibliometric analysis of complexity science in healthcare

OBJECTIVES

To analyse trends in the academic literature applying complexity science to healthcare, focusing specifically on bibliometric characteristics and indicators of influence.

DESIGN

This study reports a bibliometric analysis via a systematic search of the academic literature applying complexity science to healthcare.

METHOD

A search of four academic databases was performed on 19 April 2018. Article details were downloaded and screened against inclusion criteria (peer-reviewed journal articles applying complexity science to healthcare). Publication and content data were then collected from included articles, with analysis focusing on trends over time in the types and topics of articles, and where they are published. We also analysed the influence of this body of work through citation and network analyses.

RESULTS

Articles on complexity science in healthcare were published in 268 journals, though a much smaller subset was responsible for a substantial proportion of this literature. USA contributed the largest number of articles, followed by the UK, Canada and Australia. Over time, the number of empirical and review articles increased, relative to non-empirical contributions. However, in general, non-empirical literature was more influential, with a series of introductory conceptual papers being the most influential based on both overall citations and their use as index references within a citation network. The most common topics of focus were health systems and organisations generally, and education, with recent uptake in research, policy, and change and improvement.

CONCLUSIONS

This study identified changes in the types of articles on complexity science in healthcare published over time, and their content. There was evidence to suggest a shift from conceptual work to the application of concrete improvement strategies and increasingly in-depth examination of complex healthcare systems. We also identified variation in the influence of this literature at article level, and to a lesser extent by topic of focus.

Deliberate teaching tools for clinical teaching encounters: A critical scoping review and thematic analysis to establish definitional clarity

PURPOSE AND METHOD

We conducted a scoping review of tools designed to add structure to clinical teaching, with a thematic analysis to establish definitional clarity.

RESULTS

Six thousand and forty nine citations were screened, 434 reviewed for eligibility, and 230 identified as meeting study inclusion criteria. Eighty-nine names and 51 definitions were identified. Based on a post facto thematic analysis, we propose that these tools be named "deliberate teaching tools" (DTTs) and defined as "frameworks that enable clinicians to have a purposeful and considered approach to teaching encounters by incorporating elements identified with good teaching practice." We identified 46 DTTs in the literature, with 38 (82.6%) originally described for the medical setting. Forty justification articles consisted of 16 feedback surveys, 13 controlled trials, seven pre-post intervention studies with no control group, and four observation studies. Current evidence of efficacy is not entirely conclusive, and many studies contain methodology flaws. Forty-nine clarification articles comprised 12 systematic reviews and 37 narrative reviews. The most number of DTTs described by any review was four. A common design theme was identified in approximately three-quarters of DTTs.

CONCLUSIONS

Applicability of DTTs to specific alternate settings should be considered in context, and appropriately designed justification studies are warranted to demonstrate efficacy.

How Theory Can Inform Our Understanding of Experiential Learning in Quality Improvement Education

It is widely accepted that quality improvement (QI) education should be experiential. Many training programs believe that making QI learning "hands-on" through project-based learning will translate into successful learning about QI. However, this pervasive and overly simplistic interpretation of experiential QI learning, and the general lack of empirical exploration of the factors that influence experiential learning processes, may limit the overall impact of project-based learning on educational outcomes.In this Perspective, the authors explore the opportunities afforded by a theoretically informed approach, to deepen understanding of the diverse factors that affect experiential QI learning processes in the clinical learning environment. The authors introduce the theoretical underpinnings of experiential learning more generally, and then draw on their experiences and data, obtained in organizing and studying QI education activities, to illuminate how sociocultural theories such as Billett's workplace learning theory, and sociomaterial perspectives such as actor-network theory, can provide valuable lenses for increasing our understanding of the varied individuals, objects, contexts, and their relationships that influence project-based experiential learning. The two theoretically informed approaches that the authors describe are amongst numerous others that can inform a QI education research agenda aimed at optimizing educational processes and outcomes. The authors conclude by highlighting how a theoretically informed QI education research agenda can advance the field of QI education; they then describe strategies for achieving this goal.

Ready to run the wards? - A descriptive follow-up study assessing future doctors' clinical skills

BACKGROUND

Recent studies have shown that clinical tasks only represent a small percentage in the scope of final-year medical students' activities and often lack sufficient supervision. It appears that final-year medical students are frequently deployed to perform "routine tasks" and show deficits in the performance of more complex activities. This study aimed to evaluate final-year students' clinical performance in multiple impromptu clinical scenarios using video-based assessment.

METHODS

We assessed final-year medical students' clinical performance in a prospective, descriptive, clinical follow-up study with 24 final-year medical students during their Internal Medicine rotation. Participating students were videotaped while practicing history taking, physical examination, IV cannulation, and case presentation at the beginning and end of their rotation. Clinical performance was rated by two independent, blinded video assessors using binary checklists, activity specific rating scales and a five-point global rating scale for clinical competence.

RESULTS

Students' performance, assessed by the global rating scale for clinical competence, improved significantly during their rotation. However, their task performance was not rated as sufficient for independent practice in most cases. Analysis of average scores revealed that overall performance levels differed significantly, whereby average performance was better for less complex and more frequently performed activities.

CONCLUSIONS

We were able to show that students' performance levels differ significantly depending on the frequency and complexity of activities. Hence, to ensure adequate job preparedness for clinical practice, students need sufficiently supervised and comprehensive on-ward medical training.

On learning in the clinical environment

INTRODUCTION

The clinical environment has been increasingly acknowledged as an important setting for learning within healthcare professional education. In particular, researchers have highlighted the need to advance the knowledge on the social nature of learning in the workplace setting. The aim of the thesis was to explore workplace learning among undergraduate medical and nursing students.

METHOD

The thesis adopted a socio-cultural perspective on learning and employed a qualitative approach embedded in an interpretative tradition of inquiry. Four consecutive studies were included in the thesis, the first one designed according to qualitative description whereas the other three had an ethnographic approach. Data were collected through individual interviews and field observations. Content analysis and thematic analysis were employed.

RESULTS

For the medical students, workplace learning entailed access to a variety of activities in the role of a marginal member of the healthcare team. Medical students demonstrated an adaptive approach to workplace learning. For the nursing students, workplace learning involved being entrusted to hold responsibility for patient care and the need to negotiate their basic values with those of the workplaces. Nursing students showed a hesitant approach to workplace learning.

DISCUSSION

Workplace learning was built upon varying theoretical perspectives of learning in the medical and nursing contexts respectively. The main message in the thesis argued for an upgrading of students as a powerful and active stakeholder in workplace learning, so as not to view students as passive consumers of clinical education.

Being a surgeon or doing surgery? A qualitative study of learning in the operating room

CONTEXT

A key concern for surgical educators is to prepare students to perform in the operating room while ensuring patient safety. Recent years have seen a renewed discussion of medical education through practice theoretical and sociomaterial lenses. These lenses are introduced to understand and prepare the learner to perform in the given context. This paper takes its point of departure from practice theory by introducing a lens through which to understand learning environments in surgery.

METHODS

Using a multi-site ethnographic and practice-based design, this study investigates how aspiring surgical students are stirred into surgical practices and learn to engage as surgeons. During 70 hours of observations of medical students' participation in the operating room, we analysed how the phenomenon of surgical learning can be perceived as instances of transformation in and among social practices.

RESULTS

By applying an analytical perspective, this article highlights the use of practice theory in surgical education, which can help to establish a firmer understanding of the learning environment and thereby help educators to improve curricula and prepare students more effectively to enter surgical training.

CONCLUSIONS

The use of a practice theory adds the perspective that the education of surgeons needs to take the sayings, doings and relatings that constitute a surgical practice into account when preparing students to perform in their future workplace. In this way, surgical training can be perceived as a process of being stirred into practice. This means that one learns by participating in the practice of providing high-quality care, where the aim is to teach students to be surgeons instead of teaching them to perform surgery.

Scoping review assessing the evidence used to support the adoption of mobile health (mHealth) technologies for the education and training of community health workers (CHWs) in low-income and middle-income countries

OBJECTIVES

Undertake a systematic scoping review to determine how a research evidence base, in the form of existing systematic reviews in the field of mobile health (mHealth), constitutes education and training for community health workers (CHWs) who use mobile technologies in everyday work. The review was informed by the following research questions: does educational theory inform the design of the education and training component of mHealth interventions? How is education and training with mobile technology by CHWs in low-income and middle-income countries categorised by existing systematic reviews? What is the basis for this categorisation?

SETTING

The review explored the literature from 2000 to 2017 to investigate how mHealth interventions have been positioned within the available evidence base in relation to their use of formal theories of learning.

RESULTS

The scoping review found 24 primary studies that were categorised by 16 systematic reviews as supporting CHWs' education and training using mobile technologies. However, when formal theories of learning from educational research were used to recategorise these 24 primary studies, only four could be coded as such. This identifies a problem with how CHWs' education and training using mobile technologies is understood and categorised within the existing evidence base. This is because there is no agreed on, theoretically informed understanding of what counts as learning.

CONCLUSION

The claims made by mHealth researchers and practitioners regarding the learning benefits of mobile technology are not based on research results that are underpinned by formal theories of learning. mHealth suffers from a reductionist view of learning that underestimates the complexities of the relationship between pedagogy and technology. This has resulted in miscategorisations of what constitutes CHWs' education and training within the existing evidence base. This can be overcome by informed collaboration between the health and education communities.

Healthcare teams as complex adaptive systems: understanding team behaviour through team members' perception of interpersonal interaction

BACKGROUND

Complexity science has been introduced in healthcare as a theoretical framework to better understand complex situations. Interdisciplinary healthcare teams can be viewed as Complex Adaptive Systems (CAS) by focusing more on the team members' interaction with each other than on the characteristics of individual team members. Viewing teams in this way can provide us with insights into the origins of team behaviour. The aim of this study is to describe the functioning of a healthcare team as it originates from the members' interactions using the CAS principles as a framework and to explore factors influencing workplace learning as emergent behaviour.

METHODS

An interview study was done with 21 palliative home-care nurses, 20 community nurses and 18 general practitioners in Flanders, Belgium. A two-step analysis consisted of a deductive approach, which uses the CAS principles as coding framework for interview transcripts, followed by an inductive approach, which identifies patterns in the codes for each CAS principle.

RESULTS

All CAS principles were identified in the interview transcripts of the three groups. The most prevalent principles in our study were principles with a structuring effect on team functioning: team members act autonomously guided by internalized basic rules; attractors shape the team functioning; a team has a history and is sensitive to initial conditions; and a team is an open system, interacting with its environment. The other principles, focusing on the result of the structuring principles, were present in the data, albeit to a lesser extent: team members' interactions are non-linear; interactions between team members can produce unpredictable behaviour; and interactions between team members can generate new behaviour. Patterns, reflecting team behaviour, were recognized in the coding of each CAS principle. Patterns of team behaviour, identified in this way, were linked to interprofessional competencies of the Interprofessional Collaboration Collaborative. Factors influencing workplace learning were identified.

CONCLUSIONS

This study provides us with insights into the origin of team functioning by explaining how patterns of interactions between team members define team behaviour. Viewing healthcare teams as Complex Adaptive Systems may offer explanations of different aspects of team behaviour with implications for education, practice and research.

The surgical care practitioner seeking consent: An appropriate delegate?

Surgical care practitioners (SCPs) have become recognised as integral members of the surgical team in many healthcare establishments. Seeking informed consent either as the operating practitioner or on behalf of the surgeon, as their delegate, has becoming routine for many SCPs. Informed consent is a critical step in the patient's care pathway and fundamental in fostering shared decision making and safer surgical practice. The relatively recent case of Montgomery v Lanarkshire Health Board has highlighted a need for those practitioners seeking informed consent to critically examine their practice and revisit the founding principles of the process.