Education Horizon-Scanning

Bulletin – January 2016

Compiled by John Gale

JET Library – Mid-Cheshire

NHS Foundation Trust

Contents

Dental Education ..................................................................................................................................... 4

Problem-based learning – to facilitate or not to facilitate ................................................................. 4

General Education ................................................................................................................................... 4

Education outside the hospital – is it a wasteland out there? ........................................................... 4

Can body painting help students learn anatomy? .............................................................................. 5

Getting to grips with social learning ................................................................................................... 5

All the right moves, in the right order ................................................................................................ 5

The ins and outs of students’ volunteering ........................................................................................ 6

Inter-professional feedback. Does it matter who it comes from? ...................................................... 6

Medical Education .................................................................................................................................. 7

Training doctors to give value for money ........................................................................................... 7

Using coaching psychology in problem-based learning ...................................................................... 7

Using stories in medical education ..................................................................................................... 8

Formal and informal mentors ............................................................................................................. 8

What works best for teaching junior doctors – SNAPPS or OMP? ..................................................... 9

Becoming a medical student – a question of class? ......................................................................... 10

How do medical students cope with it all? ....................................................................................... 10

Patient simulation and medical education ....................................................................................... 10

Teaching medical students research – does it do any good? ........................................................... 11

Simulation – training the trainers in Australia .................................................................................. 11

Medically-unexplained symptoms – what do GP trainees make of them? ...................................... 11

What do people need to know to practise telepsychiatry? .............................................................. 12

The doctor – and student – will see you now ................................................................................... 12

Medical education and end-of-life decisions .................................................................................... 13

How much would we have to pay you to train here? ....................................................................... 13

Nurse Education .................................................................................................................................... 14

Training nurses in men’s health promotion ...................................................................................... 14

Success and the sense of coherence................................................................................................. 14

Blood clots and dodgy tickers. How much do nurses really need to know about them? ................ 15

What motivates nurses to do what CPD? ......................................................................................... 15

Teaching nursing students to learn about pharmacology ................................................................ 15

Career maturity, attribution and future consciousness ................................................................... 16

The rewards of learning-disability placements ................................................................................. 16

Training for patient deterioration – do video cameras help? ........................................................... 17

What helps mentors to fail students? .............................................................................................. 17

Dental Education

Problem-based learning – to facilitate or not to facilitate Source: BMC Medical Education

Date of Publication: January 2016

In a nutshell: In problem-based learning (PBL) students start from a particular problem or scenario

and use it to gain knowledge and reasoning skills rather than moving in the other direction. Or, to

put it another way they start from the particular and move to the abstract rather than vice versa. In

this study Susanne Gerhardt-Szep, from the Goethe University of Frankfurt am Main, led a team of

researchers comparing facilitated PBL sessions to non-facilitated ones in a study of 106 students and

four tutors. The study found that while facilitating tutors received higher scores for their ability to

motivate students to learn and their effectiveness non-facilitating tutors actually taught the students

more. External observers documented a “significantly higher activity among facilitative tutors

compared to non-facilitative tutors.” The students felt that the non-facilitated sessions gave them a

higher level of independence and autonomy but that more preparation was needed for them.

You can see the whole of this article here.

General Education

Education outside the hospital – is it a wasteland out there? Source: Health Education England

Date of Publication: December 2015

In a nutshell: Buckinghamshire New University has been looking at the training needs of healthcare

professionals who don’t work in hospitals. Their evaluation makes a number of recommendations

including:

Increased inter-professional education and training

Greater co-location of services and professionals

Developing specific knowledge and skills particularly in:

o Diabetes

o Mental Health

o COPD

Improved IT communication between hospitals, primary, community health and social-care

services

You can download the whole report from the evaluation here.

Can body painting help students learn anatomy? Source: BMC Medical Education

Date of Publication: January 2016

In a nutshell: There are 206 bones in the human body and 638 muscles so it’s hardly surprising that

many students adopt a rote-learning approach to passing exams in anatomy. This can lead to

superficial learning with things being remembered for only as long as people need to pass an exam.

Leslie J. Nicholson from the University of Sydney, led a team of researchers looking into ways of

making learning anatomy more interesting by using body painting, clay modelling, white boards and

quizzes. 66 health-science students took part in the workshops and those that did significantly

improved their performance in tests compared to those that hadn’t taken part. People taking part in

the workshops also said they felt more self-confident than those who didn’t take part in them and all

the attendees said they had met their goals of understanding, strategic engagement, examination

preparation, memorisation and increasing self-confidence. The most useful parts of the workshop, as

far as the attendees were concerned, were body painting and clay modelling.

You can see the whole of this article here.

Getting to grips with social learning Source: Julian Stodd’s learning blog

Date of Publication: October 2015

In a nutshell: Social learning can be defined – very crudely – as what we pick up from other people

rather than via formal teaching or textbooks. Social learning is about helping one another, building

networks, solving problems and sharing stories and is just as likely to happen on a works night out as

it is in a classroom or seminar. Social learning makes the most of tacit knowledge and – because it is

less formalised – can be more ‘agile,’ and up-to-date than formal knowledge. Scaffolded social

learning – which is what Julian Stodd talks about in his blog – combines the best elements of formal

and social learning. There is a structure and a framework but, within this, people are asked to

contribute to, or ‘co-create,’ their learning.

You can find out more about scaffolded social learning here.

All the right moves, in the right order Source: BMC Medical Education

Date of Publication: January 2016

In a nutshell: However much anatomy and physiology they learn nearly all healthcare students end

up having to do things – with or without inanimate objects – to bodies. This is called procedural skills

and there is little evidence on how they are best learnt and practised in medical education. This

literature review – led by Martin Sattelmayer, from Queen Margaret University in Switzerland –

looked into the effectiveness of different ways of teaching healthcare students procedural skills. It

found 15 studies it deemed to be of a high-enough quality to be included in the final review. They

showed that mental practice (running through the steps of a procedure without actually doing it)

significantly improved performance while giving feedback after a procedure had been completed

significantly improved learning. Practising the whole of a skill was better than practising its individual

parts but practising skills in a random order was found to be superior to practising skills in ‘blocks.’

You can see the whole of this article here.

The ins and outs of students’ volunteering Source: BMC Medical Education

Date of Publication: January 2016

In a nutshell: This study looked into the ins and outs of volunteering at a community-based, student-

run clinic in Canada and was led by Yelena Bird, from the University of Saskatchewan. 170 student

volunteers took part in a survey which found that management played an important role in the

students’ motivation and how much training they received but had relatively little impact on their

commitment to the organisation. In turn motivation had the strongest effect on the students’

performance and satisfaction levels, whereas commitment was more important in affecting their

overall satisfaction levels. While management had the greatest impact on the volunteers’

performance and overall experience organisational support was more important in terms of their

satisfaction.

You can see the whole of this article here.

Inter-professional feedback. Does it matter who it comes from? Source: Medical Education

Date of Publication: January 2016

In a nutshell: The growing popularity of inter-professional education means that healthcare

professionals are often assessed on their ability to work in a team. But are people more inclined to

take feedback from people working in their own profession on board? In this study Sandrijn M. van

Schaik, from the University of California, San Francisco, led a team of researchers studying 45

healthcare professionals who took part in an inter-professional simulation exercise. Two nurses and

two doctors gave them anonymous feedback. The participants all received a survey containing

feedback and were asked to rate its usefulness, ‘positivity,’ and their agreement (or otherwise) with

each comment. Half of the participants got feedback with the feedback provider’s profession

labelled while the other half got anonymous feedback and were asked to guess the provider’s

profession. It turned out that nurses rated feedback from other nurses more highly than feedback

from doctors while doctors preferred feedback from other doctors to feedback from nurses.

You can see the abstract of this article here.

Medical Education

Training doctors to give value for money Source: Journal of the American Medical Association

Date of Publication: December 2015

In a nutshell: Barring the discovery of a magic money tree in the back garden of 11 Downing Street it

seems likely that getting good value for money will be important in the NHS for the foreseeable

future. In this study Lorette A. Stammen from Maastricht University in Holland led a team of

researchers which reviewed studies into different ways of teaching doctors to get good value for

money. They found that three factors helped doctors to learn successfully about getting value for

money. They were:

1) Effective transmission of knowledge about:

a. General health economics

b. Prices of health services

c. Scientific evidence about guidelines

d. The benefits and harms of health care

e. Patients’ preferences and personal values

2) Facilitation of reflective practice by providing feedback or asking reflective questions about

ordering tests or prescribing treatments

3) The creation of a supportive environment with cost-conscious role-models and a culture of

high-value cost-conscious care

You can see the abstract of this article here.

Using coaching psychology in problem-based learning Source: BMC Medical Education

Date of Publication: January 2016

In a nutshell: In problem-based learning (PBL) medical students are presented with authentic

scenarios which they have to investigate themselves rather than sitting passively through lectures on

abstract topics the theory being that they learn how to solve people’s problems – and learn by

themselves – rather than rote learning bones of the body. Previous studies have shown that PBL

fosters the development of self-directed life-long learning as long as students are supported and

guided. But what is the best way to do this? Qing Wang – from the East China Normal University –

led a team of researchers looking into how coaching psychology could be applied to problem-based

learning. The use of coaching psychology for learning emphasises personal involvement, careful

listening, acceptance, empathy and reflection to create a non-threatening and non-judgemental

environment where learners feel free to delve into their own experiences and seek answers to their

own problems. In the study four educational-psychology researchers, eight medical students and

two PBL teachers took part in a four-month-long research programme. Five themes emerged from

interviews with the participants which were:

Current experience of the PBL curriculum

The roles and relationships between tutors and students

Student group dynamics

The development of self-directed learning

Coaching in PBL facilitation

The researchers concluded that “the integrated framework of PBL and coaching psychology in

undergraduate medical education has the potential to promote the development of learning goals of

cultivating clinical reasoning ability, lifelong-learning capacities and medical humanity.”

You can see the whole of this article here.

Using stories in medical education Source: BMC Medical Education

Date of Publication: January 2016

In a nutshell: There is a long history of using stories to teach people although medical-education

researchers like to sound more grown up by referring to them as narratives. In this study Graham

Easton, from Imperial College in London, looked at the way lecturers used stories and what students,

and the lecturers themselves, thought about them. The study found that lecturers used a variety of

narratives on a range of themes from clinical cases to stories about patients’ experiences and stories

about their own careers. Both students and lecturers highlighted the fact that narratives provided a

relevant context, were a good ‘hook’ to engage people in a topic and were a good memory aid.

You can see the whole of this article here.

Formal and informal mentors Source: BMC Medical Education

Date of Publication: January 2016

In a nutshell: Medical schools often assign people to act as mentors to medical students but

students also sometimes seek out people themselves to act as their informal mentors. In this study

Jay J.H. Park, from Calgary University in Canada, led a team of researchers looking into the effects of

these informal mentors. The researchers sent a survey to 95 medical students, 58% of whom said

they had an informal mentor. The students’ satisfaction with the official university mentorship

programme was unaffected whether they had an informal mentor or not although they did perceive

their informal mentors more positively than their university ones. Interestingly the students said

they were more likely to follow the career path of their informal mentor rather than that of the one

assigned to them by the university.

You can read the whole of this study here.

What works best for teaching junior doctors – SNAPPS or OMP? Source: BMC Medical Education

Date of Publication: January 2015

In a nutshell: In some places junior doctors – rather like newly-qualified nurses – have a preceptor to

guide them through their early days treating patients. There are a number of frameworks for doing

this and this study – led by Masayasu Seki, from Tokyo Medical University – compared two of them.

In one of those tortured acronyms beloved of academics and bureaucrats SNAPPS stands for:

Summarise briefly the history and findings

Narrow the differential to 2-3 relevant possibilities

Analyse the differential by comparing and contrasting the possibilities

Probe the preceptor by asking questions about uncertainties, difficulties, or alternative

approaches

Plan the management to the patient’s medical issues

Select a case-related issue for self-directed learning

The One-Minute Preceptor (OMP) is also a six-stage process and comprises:

Get a commitment

Probe for supporting evidence

Teach general rules

Reinforce what was right

Correct mistakes

Identify next learning steps

71 junior doctors took part in the study. They were placed – at random – into two groups; one group

used SNAPPS and the other used OMP. SNAPPS came out on top as the junior doctors thought it was

easier to bring up questions and uncertainties, easier to present cases efficiently, easier to present

the case in the sequence given and easier to give in-depth presentations.

You can see the whole of this article here.

Becoming a medical student – a question of class? Source: BMC Medical Education

Date of Publication: January 2016

In a nutshell: Some people think it’s important that medical students should come from a wide

range of backgrounds. In this study Kathryn Steven – from Dundee University – led a team of

researchers which looked at the backgrounds of people applying to 22 medical schools in the UK

between 2009 and 2012. They found that 19.7-34.5% of applicants were from the most affluent

tenth of postcodes while only 1.8-5.7% of applicants were from the least affluent postcodes.

Regardless of postcodes the majority of applicants from each postcode had parents in the highest

socio-economic group. Applicants living in the most deprived postcodes, with parents from the

lowest socioeconomic groups and who had been to a comprehensive school were less likely to get

an offer from medical school.

You can see the whole of this article here.

How do medical students cope with it all? Source: BMC Medical Education

Date of Publication: January 2016

In a nutshell: Hardly surprisingly the transition from being a medical student to being a doctor can

be a rather stressful one. In this study Chun-Hao Liu, from Chang Gung University in Taiwan, led a

team of researchers who interviewed 21 interns about their experiences. Things that made them

feel stressed included a sense of responsibility; coping with uncertainty and interpersonal

relationships resulting from their transition from observer to practitioner. Some of the medical

students used self-directed learning to cope with stress while others used avoidance, either literally

or metaphorically running away from the situation. While self-directed learning had a number of

benefits avoidance led to less motivation to learn and reduced the quality of care provided to

patients.

You can see the whole of this article here.

Patient simulation and medical education Source: BMC Medical Education

Date of Publication: January 2016

In a nutshell: Most medical educators now think it’s important for students to be actively engaged in

their learning rather than sitting passively listening to lectures. But how is this happy state of affairs

to be brought about? One of the ways of achieving this is through virtual patient simulation (VPS) in

which students work their way through ‘cases’ of imaginary patients. Lise McCoy of A.T. Still

University in Arizona led a team of researchers studying 108 first-year medical students taking part

in virtual-case simulations. They measured students’ engagement based on three criteria: flow (how

much they became absorbed in the class); interest and relevance. The researchers found that the

students enjoyed the activities and became absorbed in the task in hand; were interested in them

displaying enjoyment, active discussion and humour (although they didn’t enjoy the noise created by

other people’s conversations) and found the VPSs relevant in terms of clinical practice, exam

preparation and obtaining feedback on clinical decisions.

You can see the whole of this article here.

Teaching medical students research – does it do any good? Source: BMC Medical Education

Date of Publication: January 2016

In a nutshell: Some medical schools are now training students in scientific research which is thought

to help them acquire skills such as communication, research, organisation and learning for

themselves. In this study Laura Ribeiro from the University of Porto led a team of researchers

looking into the effectiveness of this approach. 611 medical students in their first, fourth and sixth

years took part in the study. 72.7% of them said that their team-work skills were good but the

students rated their ability to manage information technology, manage time and search medical

literature as only sufficient. As the students went through their course and took part in more

research their writing skills and English proficiency both improved.

You can see the whole of this article here.

Simulation – training the trainers in Australia Source: BMC Medical Education

Date of Publication: January 2016

In a nutshell: A lot of medical students take part in simulations as part of their education. It’s

important that the people teaching students using this method are competent at what they’re doing

and this study looked into a national training programme to ‘train the trainers,’ which was

introduced in Australia in 2011. The programme – the Australian Simulation Educator and Technician

Training (AusSETT) programme was evaluated by a team of researchers led by Debra Nestel from

Monash University. Participants rated the content of, and educational methods used by, the course

highly and thought its strengths were its high-quality facilitation and breadth of depth and content.

Areas for development included the course’s electronic portfolio and learning-management system.

Interviews with participants suggested the course had had a good effect on their teaching and

“observers reported a high-quality educational experience for participants with alignment of content

and methods with perceived participant needs.”

You can see the whole of this article here.

Medically-unexplained symptoms – what do GP trainees make of them? Source: BMC Medical Education

Date of Publication: January 2016

In a nutshell: Many patients who walk through a doctor’s doors have symptoms that can’t be

explained by the current state of medical science something known as medically-unexplained

symptoms (MUS). Sometimes these are psychological in origin and at other times they are even

more mysterious than the innermost workings of the human psyche. But how do trainee GPs cope

with people with MUS? Mary Howman, from University College London, led a team of researchers

looking into this issue. 80 filled out a survey and 15 of them had longer interviews. The study found

that the trainees struggled to cope with the uncertainties inherent in MUS and felt they often

ordered too many tests and investigations for their own reassurance. They also found it difficult to

broach to patients the idea that MUS might have psychological origins and to provide appropriate

explanations to patients for their symptoms. The trainees also thought that more preparation for

explaining MUS was needed throughout their training. Other trainees, however, had had more

positive experiences of MUS and had found dealing with patients with them rewarding; usually after

they had had several consultations, and built up a relationship, with them.

You can read the whole of this article here.

What do people need to know to practise telepsychiatry? Source: BMC Medical Education

Date of Publication: January 2016

In a nutshell: Telepsychiatry – helping people in mental distress over the telephone – has a number

of advantages. It works well in rural areas and for people who might otherwise struggle to make it

into a doctor’s and it tends to be cheaper than seeing people in person. But what do trainee doctors

need to know to be able to practise telepsychiatry well? Allison Crawford, from the University of

Toronto, led a team of researchers looking into this issue interviewing nine lecturers and seven

junior doctors in the process. The study found that the main issues for trainee doctors were:

Technical skills

Assessment skills

Relational skills and communication

Collaborative and inter-professional skills

Administrative skills

Medico-legal skills

Community psychiatry

Cultural psychiatry

Knowledge of health systems

The doctor – and student – will see you now Source: Medical Education

Date of Publication: January 2016

In a nutshell: Medical students sometimes sit in on GPs’ appointments with patients in the hope that

they will learn how – or how not – to deal with patients themselves. But what difference does this

make to the quality of the process? Riitta Partanen, from the University of Queensland, led a team of

researchers looking into this issue by surveying GPs, patients and students about consultations with

and without students present. The study found that 83.5% of patients were comfortable with the

presence of a student. There were no significant differences between consultations with and

without students in terms of waiting times, patient satisfaction, length of consultation or GP’s

perceptions of how well things had gone but patients were more likely to raise sensitive or personal

issues when there wasn’t a student present.

You can see the abstract of this article here.

Medical education and end-of-life decisions Source: Medical Education

Date of Publication: January 2016

In a nutshell: Getting things right as patients near death is an almost impossible task for doctors and

nurses. Do too much and one prolongs people’s suffering unnecessarily, do too little and one can be

accused of indifference and neglect. In this study Michael A. Valentino, from Thomas Jefferson

University Hospital in Philadelphia, led a team of researchers looking into how doctors’ attitudes to

end-of-life care changed throughout their medical training. The researchers found that faced with

scenarios of permanent physical disability; terminal illness with associated physical disability and

permanent cognitive impairment the further a doctor was through their training the less likely they

were to recommend intermediate or aggressive treatments. Notwithstanding the complex moral

arguments about this issue it is, at the very least, interesting to know that this is doctors’ direction of

travel, so to speak, as they move through their training.

You can read the abstract of this article here.

How much would we have to pay you to train here? Source: Medical Education

Date of Publication: January 2016

In a nutshell: In this study – led by Jennifer Cleland, from Aberdeen University – junior doctors were

asked about their preferences for training posts and how much money they would have to get to

move to somewhere less favourable. 1323 trainee doctors answered the researchers’ questionnaire.

Good working conditions were the most important factor for trainees in choosing a post – they said

they would need nearly half as much money again (49.8%) to move from a post with good working

conditions to one with bad conditions. Next came opportunities for one’s spouse or partner a propos

of which trainees said they would need to be paid 38.4% more to move to a post where

opportunities were good to one where they were poor. And to move from a desirable to a less-

desirable area trainees would need to be paid 30.8% more.

You can see the abstract of this article here.

Nurse Education

Training nurses in men’s health promotion Source: Nurse Education in Practice

Date of Publication: January 2016

In a nutshell: Not content with DIY and gardening a lot of countries think that men should be nagged

about their health too. Nurses working in primary care might be good people to do this but they

don’t always have the necessary skills. In this study Taletha A. Rizio, from Monash University in

Australia, led a team of researchers evaluating a ‘train the trainer,’ approach for delivering men’s

health education to primary health care nurses. They developed an eight-hour workshop designed to

equip nurses to deliver men’s health education workshops to their peers. After the workshops 18

facilitators and 98 participants filled out a survey. After having been on the workshop 92% of the

facilitators expressed confidence, and all indicated sufficient knowledge and access to resources, to

deliver a peer workshop. And all agreed that the module was flexible enough to suit their local

setting. Following the workshop both the facilitators and the participants reported high levels of

confidence and knowledge in men’s health promotion.

You can see the abstract of this article here.

Success and the sense of coherence Source: Nurse Education in Practice

Date of Publication: January 2016

In a nutshell: Sense of coherence is an idea developed by Aaron Antonovsky (1923-1994) an

American professor of medical sociology. It is made up of three key concepts which are:

Comprehensibility – a belief that things happen in an orderly and predictable fashion and a sense

that you can understand events in your life and predict what will happen in the future

Manageability – a belief that one has the skills, abilities and resources necessary to deal with what

happens

Meaningfulness – a belief that things in life are interesting, satisfying and worthwhile and that there

is reason to care about what happens

In this study Yenna Salamonson, from the University of Western Sydney in Penrith, New South

Wales, led a team of researchers looking into the links between sense of coherence, the ability to

learn for oneself and academic achievement. The researchers studied 563 first-year nursing students

and found that a higher sense of coherence was related to better academic grades and that students

with a high sense of coherence were better at ‘self-regulated learning,’ i.e. studying on their own

account.

You can see the abstract of this article here.

Blood clots and dodgy tickers. How much do nurses really need to know about them? Source: BMC Medical Education

Date of Publication: January 2016

In a nutshell: Thromboprophylaxis is the trip-off-the-tongue name for treatments designed to

prevent people developing blood clots. How much patients know about their medicines designed to

deal with atrial fibrillation (an irregular and too-quick heartbeat) and their anticoagulation medicines

can affect how effective thromboprophylaxis is so how much nurses can teach them about these

issues is quite important. Caleb Ferguson, from the University of Technology in Sydney, led a team of

researchers looking into nurses’ knowledge of these issues. 55 nurses answered a survey about this

issue. The nurses were found to be underusing assessment tools and were reluctant to give patients

anticoagulants for fears of patients falling and fears of poor adherence to medication. Patient self-

monitoring and self-management were under-used. The nurses considered their most important role

to be patient counselling and advising them about their therapy regimes but the study found that

their knowledge of anticoagulant drug interaction was “generally poor.”

You can see the whole of this article here.

What motivates nurses to do what CPD? Source: Nurse Education Today

Date of Publication: January 2016

In a nutshell: Most nurses do some form of continuing professional development (CPD) at some

point or other. But why do they do it and which activities do they choose for which purpose. Inge A.

Pool – from the University Medical Centre Utrecht – led a team of researchers looking into the kinds

of CPD nurses do and why they do it. Their study found that increasing competence was the primary

motive that stimulated nurses to engage in self-directed learning during work and formal learning

activities whereas to comply with requirements they went on mandatory courses. To deepen their

knowledge they went to conferences while to develop their careers they enrolled on postgraduate

courses.

You can see the abstract of this article here.

Teaching nursing students to learn about pharmacology Source: Nurse Education Today

Date of Publication: January 2016

In a nutshell: A lot of nursing students struggle to get to grips with pharmacology. Drugs tend to

have long complex names and it’s often difficult to translate information about them into the nuts

and bolts of patient care. In this study Suzanne Alton, from the University of Texas Medical Branch,

looked into the effectiveness of teaching nurses strategies for learning (‘meta learning’) alongside

their pharmacology course. The students found they learnt the material more easily and had greater

confidence in what they’d learnt. In descending order the most useful learning strategies were:

Making charts to compare and contrast drugs and drug classes

Writing out drug flash cards

Making or reviewing creative projects

Prioritizing information

Making or using visual study aids

Using time and repetition to space learning

Introducing the new course improved the average score on the students’ pharmacology exam from

67% to 74.3%.

You can see the abstract of this article here.

Career maturity, attribution and future consciousness Source: BMC Medical Education

Date of Publication: January 2016

In a nutshell: Career maturity is defined an “individual’s readiness to make informed, age-

appropriate career decisions and to successfully manage appropriate career development tasks.”

People with more career maturity are more likely to realise their potential, have a higher degree of

social adjustment and achieve more in their careers. In this study Cheng Cheng from Shandong

University in China led a team of researchers looking into the links between career maturity,

attribution and future consciousness. Attribution is the way people ascribe causes to events – how

much they see them as within their control and how much they see them as uncontrollable and

down to external factors. And being more future conscious involves setting goals in the medium- to

long-term and striving towards meeting them by developing one’s behaviour in the present. 431

undergraduate nursing students took part in the study which found that the students’ degree of

career maturity was “moderate.” Those students who displayed internal attribution – i.e. who

believed events were within their control – and more future consciousness also had a greater degree

of career maturity.

You can read the whole of this article here.

The rewards of learning-disability placements Source: Nursing Standard

Date of Publication: January 2016

In a nutshell: Learning disability can be something of a neglected field as far as nursing – and

medical – students go. In this article Jemma O’Byrne – a third-year children’s nursing student at the

University of Hertfordshire – writes about her experiences of a placement at a special-needs school

in north London. O’Byrne found her placement showed her how much she could learn from children

with disabilities and had had a positive impact on her practice making her feel empowered to treat

people with learning disabilities as equals and take the time to get to know them. O’Byrne argues

that all nursing students should have a placement involving people with learning disabilities

something which would improve their communication skills and help them to understand patients’

experience in different settings.

Those of you with access to the Nursing Standard can read the whole of this article here.

Training for patient deterioration – do video cameras help? Source: Nurse Education Today

Date of Publication: January 2016

In a nutshell: Deciding how to manage patients who are going downhill is tricky for both doctors and

nurses. One of the ways of training people how to do this is through simulation exercises with

students being given feedback on how they coped after the exercise has finished. Helen Forbes –

from Deakin University in Geelong, Australia – led a team of researchers looking into whether

wearing head-mounted video cameras could improve simulation and feedback for student nurses.

10 final-year nursing undergraduates took part in three simulation exercises – in the second of the

exercises the students wore head-mounted video cameras. Over the course of the three simulations

six of the students showed an improvement in how they managed deteriorating patients, seven felt

more confident and eight felt they were more competent. However, only two of the students said

that using the head-mounted cameras had enhanced their learning and the visual fields of the head-

mounted cameras weren’t always synchronised with the particpants’ field of vision which affected

the usefulness of some of the recordings.

You can see the abstract of this article here.

What helps mentors to fail students? Source: Nurse Education Today

Date of Publication: January 2016

In a nutshell: As well as coaching students while they are on placement mentors are responsible for

failing the ones who don’t come up to scratch on the wards. People sometimes worry that mentors

are too kind-hearted to fail students who really aren’t up to the job leading to unsuitable people

qualifying as nurses. In this study Louise A. Hunt, from Birmingham University, led a team of

researchers looking into what enabled mentors to fail underperforming nurses. She spoke to 31

mentors and five categories emerged from her findings. These were:

Braving the assessment vortex

Identifying the ‘gist’ of underperformance

Tempering reproach

Standing up to scrutiny

Drawing on an interpersonal network

The mentors felt that they needed to feel secure to fail a student nurse and that they used a three-

stage decision-making process to reach this decision. Many of the things which helped mentors feel

secure were informal in nature and functioned on goodwill and local arrangements rather than on

timely, formal, organisational systems. The mentor’s partner or spouse and practice education

facilitator or link lecturer were identified as the key people who provided emotional support during

the challenging process of failing a nurse.

You can read the abstract of this article here.