Prehospital management of the acutely ill child

Intraprofessional boundary crossing in acute paediatric care: A rich journey for general practice and paediatric residents

BACKGROUND

Achieving optimal collaboration between general practitioners and hospital-based critical care doctors is vital yet challenging, necessitating targeted collaborative training during residency. Despite apparent benefits, implementing intraprofessional learning faces constraints. Understanding its occurrence is crucial for engaging and educating residents. Considering boundaries' learning potential, we developed and evaluated an educational programme for general practitioner (GP) and paediatric (P) residents in paediatric emergency care based on Akkerman's Boundary Crossing Theory. The study investigated how intraprofessional learning mechanisms occurred and what learning conditions facilitated or impeded learning of GP and P residents, aiming to optimise educational programme design for intraprofessional collaboration.

METHODS

We developed an educational programme with three activities: joint medical assessments of paediatric patients in each other's context, mutually mini-Clinical Evaluation Exercises (mini-CEXs) about intraprofessional collaboration skills and educational meetings about collaborative care. We performed a qualitative study with a constructivist approach to explore experiences of the programme. We conducted focus group interviews and analysed mini-CEXs, utilising Boundary Crossing theory for template analysis.

RESULTS

Ten GP and eight P residents participated in our study. Learning mechanisms of identification and coordination dominated the joint medical assessments. Mini-CEXs stimulated reflection. Educational meetings with supervisors about intraprofessional barriers initiated transformation. Facilitated learning conditions were bidirectional crossing, enthusiastic supervisors, residents being familiar with each other, clear mini-CEX design and authentic paediatric cases. Unclear mutual expectations during joint medical assessments impeded learning of residents.

CONCLUSIONS

Working in each other's context triggers learning mechanisms of identification, coordination and reflection, forming the basis for intraprofessional learning in paediatric emergency care for GP and P residents. For development of new collaboration practices, supervisors are necessary to translate reflection into transformation. Mutual responsibilities and expectations should be made more explicit to create a safer intraprofessional learning environment. Our findings extend to other medical training contexts, leveraging boundaries for learning.

Ambulance nurses' experiences of nursing critically ill and injured children: A difficult aspect of ambulance nursing care

BACKGROUND

Ambulance nurses work daily in both emergency and non-emergency situations that can be demanding. One emotionally demanding situation for ambulance nurses is to nurse children who are ill.

AIM

The aim of this study was to describe ambulance nurses' experiences of nursing critically ill or injured children.

METHOD

Eight specialist ambulance nurses were interviewed and the interviews were analyzed using qualitative content analysis.

FINDINGS

The analysis resulted in one theme, a difficult aspect of ambulance nursing care, with five categories. The security of both child and parents was considered to be paramount. Ambulance nurses felt relieved when they handed over the responsibility and the child to the receiving unit. The ambulance nurses felt that more training, education and follow-up was desirable in order to increase their security when nursing children.

CONCLUSION

Ambulance nurses are subject to stressful feelings while nursing children. As providing reassurance to the child and its parents is a cornerstone of the treatment, it is important for the ambulance nurses to take the time to build up a trusting relationship in such an encounter. Skill development in the area might lead to increased security and reduce the mental burden resulting from negative stress.