Lack of nurse‒physician collaboration in wound care may result in prolonged healing times for patients. In order to facilitate future professional collaboration, undergraduate learning activities in interprofessional education (IPE) have been proposed. The aim of this study was to investigate nursing and medical students’ attitudes and perceptions towards each other’s future professions and interprofessional collaboration in wound care. Nursing and medical students took part in an interprofessional learning activity about wound care. Data were collected using the Jefferson Scale of Attitudes towards Physician‒Nurse Collaboration questionnaire to student groups before and after an IPE activity (pooled n = 221). Focus groups were conducted to deepen the knowledge about students’ attitudes and perceptions. The results showed high scores on the attitude scale (mean 53.2, possible maximum = 60) both before and after IPE, indicating positive attitudes towards nurse‒physician collaboration. Nursing students scored higher than medical students both pre-IPE (p < 0.001) and post-IPE (p = 0.006). However, no difference on scale scores could be identified between pre- and post-IPE. The following themes emerged in the analysis of focus group discussions: “Approaching patient care from different perspectives,” “Need for collaboration and clear professional roles in practice,” “Structures hindering future collaboration,” and “IPE as a tool for professional practice and roles.” The shared learning activity provided insights into the other profession’s competence. This kind of learning activity may increase future interprofessional collaboration, and thus, improve wound care.

Background: Medical simulation enables the design of learning activities for competency areas (eg, communication and leadership) identified as crucial for future health care professionals. Simulation educators and medical teachers follow different career paths, and their education backgrounds and teaching contexts may be very different in a simulation setting. Although they have a key role in facilitating learning, information on the continuing professional development (pedagogical development) of simulation educators is not available in the literature.

Objectives: To explore changes in experienced simulation educators’ perceptions of their own teaching skills, practices, and understanding of teaching over time.

Methods: A qualitative exploratory study. Fourteen experienced simulation educators participated in individual open-ended interviews focusing on their development as simulation educators. Data were analyzed using an inductive thematic analysis.

Results: Marked educator development was discerned over time, expressed mainly in an altered way of thinking and acting. Five themes were identified: shifting focus, from following to utilizing a structure, setting goals, application of technology, and alignment with profession. Being confident in the role as an instructor seemed to constitute a foundation for the instructor’s pedagogical development.

Conclusion: Experienced simulation educators’ pedagogical development was based on self-confidence in the educator role, and not on a deeper theoretical understanding of teaching and learning. This is the first clue to gain increased understanding regarding educational level and possible education needs among simulation educators, and it might generate several lines of research for further studies.

The increasing complexity of health care practice makes continuing professional development (CPD) essential for health care professionals. Simulation-based training is a CPD activity that is often applied to improve interprofessional collaboration and the quality of care. The aim of this study is to explore simulation as a pedagogical practice for the CPD of health care professionals. Specifically, the study focuses on how a professional development activity, the simulation, is enacted to support interprofessional collaboration and learning. A practice theory perspective is used as the theoretical framework. In this, the professional practice is conceptualised as being embodied, relational and situated in sociomaterial arrangements. Ten introduction and reflection sessions following interprofessional full-scale manikin-based simulations with professionals were video-recorded. The recordings were analysed following a stepwise qualitative collaborative approach developed for the purpose. The key findings suggest that the professional competence activity is enacted and interconnected with and governed by historical traditions of institutional teaching practices as well as simulation practices. Despite the intentions of team and interprofessional training, the institutional teaching and simulation practices constrain and hinder the intended outcomes of professional development in interprofessional collaboration.

Background

The rationale for introducing full-scale patient simulators in training to improve patient safety is to recreate clinical situations in a realistic setting. Although high-fidelity simulators mimic a wide range of human features, simulators differ from the body of a sick patient. The gap between the simulator and the human body implies a need for facilitators to provide information to help participants understand scenarios. The authors aimed at describing different methods that facilitators in our dataset used to provide such extra scenario information and how the different methods to convey information affected how scenarios played out.

Methods

A descriptive qualitative study was conducted to examine the variation of methods to deliver extra scenario information to participants. A multistage approach was employed. The authors selected film clips from a shared database of 31 scenarios from three participating simulation centers. A multidisciplinary research team performed a collaborative analysis of representative film clips focusing on the interplay between participants, facilitators, and the physical environment. After that, the entire material was revisited to further examine and elaborate the initial findings.

Results

The material displayed four distinct methods for facilitators to convey information to participants in simulation-based teamwork training. The choice of method had impact on the participating teams regarding flow of work, pace, and team communication. Facilitators’ close access to the teams’ activities when present in the simulation suite, either embodied or disembodied in the simulation, facilitated the timing for providing information, which was critical for maintaining the flow of activities in the scenario. The mediation of information by a loudspeaker or an earpiece from the adjacent operator room could be disturbing for team communication.

Conclusions

In-scenario instruction is an essential component of simulation-based teamwork training that has been largely overlooked in previous research. The ways in which facilitators convey information about the simulated patient have the potential to shape the simulation activities and thereby serve different learning goals. Although immediate timing to maintain an adequate pace is necessary for professionals to engage in training of medical emergencies, novices may gain from a slower tempo to train complex clinical team tasks systematically.

En gemensam simuleringsdag för sjuksköterske- och läkarstudenter har utvärderats och diskuteras här i relation till interprofessionellt lärande och simuleringsbaserat lärande.

IPL-simuleringen kännetecknas av ett starkt studentengagemang och upplevs som mycket relevant och kliniskt autentisk. Den simuleringsbaserade satsningen är alltså fortsatt aktuell och har utvecklats till en hög nivå med relevans för lärande och klinisk förberedelse. Innehållet rör såväl kliniska som team­relaterade kunskaper och kompetenser. Simulering som undervisningsform uppskattas högt och simulerings­instruktörens bidrag till lärandet lyfts fram. Ambitionsnivån kan ytterligare höjas på några punkter. Kurskamraternas bidrag i lärandet kan ytterligare stärkas, likaså omvårdnads­innehållet i scenarierna.

IPL-mål adresseras i aktiviteten, i synnerhet ökar teamsamverkan progressivt under dagen. Det inter­professionella lärandet kan stärkas ännu mer  genom att linjera tydligare med övriga IPL-moment samt knyta an till de uttalade IPL-curriculum-målen.

Background: Virtual Patients (VPs) have been in the focus of research in healthcare education for many years. The aim of our study was to analyze how virtual patients are described in the healthcare education literature, and how the identified concepts relate to each other. Methods: We performed a literature review and extracted 185 descriptions of virtual patients from the articles. In a qualitative content analysis approach we inductively-deductively developed categories and deducted subcategories. We constructed a concept map to illustrate these concepts and their interrelations. Results: We developed the following five main categories: Patient, Teacher, Virtual Patient, Curriculum, and Learner. The concept map includes these categories and highlights aspects such as the under-valued role of patients in shaping their virtual representation and opposing concepts, such as standardization of learner activity versus learner-centeredness. Conclusions: The presented concept map synthesizes VP descriptions and serves as a basis for both, VP use and discussions of research topics related to virtual patients.

Background: The debriefing phase is an important feature of simulation activities for learning. This study applies a sociomaterial perspective on debriefing in interprofessional simulation with medical and nursing students. Sociomaterial perspectives are increasingly being used in order to understand professional practice and learning in new ways, conceptualising professional practice as being embodied, relational and situated in sociomaterial relations. The aim of the study is to explore how debriefing is carried out as a practice supporting students’ interprofessional learning.

Methods: Eighteen debriefing sessions following interprofessional full-scale manikin-based simulation with nursing and medical students from two different universities were video-recorded and analysed collaboratively by a team of researchers, applying a structured scheme for constant comparative analysis.

Results: The findings show how debriefing is intertwined with, and shaped by social and material relationships. Two patterns of enacting debriefing emerged. Debriefing as algorithm was enacted as a protocol-based, closed inquiry approach. Debriefing as laissez-faire was enacted as a loosely structured collegial conversation with an open inquiry approach.

Conclusion: The findings indicate that neither an imposed structure of the debriefing, nor the lack of structure assured interprofessional collaboration to emerge as a salient topic for reflection, even though that was an explicit learning objective for the simulation. 

Background

Students’ self-regulated learning becomes essential with increased use of exploratory web-based activities such as virtual patients (VPs). The purpose was to investigate the interplay between students’ self-regulated learning strategies and perceived benefit in VP learning activities.

Method

A cross-sectional study (n = 150) comparing students’ study strategies and perceived benefit of a virtual patient learning activity in a clinical clerkship preparatory course. Teacher regulation varied among three settings and was classified from shared to strong. These settings were compared regarding their respective relations between regulation strategies and perceived benefit of the virtual patient activity.

Results

Self-regulation learning strategy was generally associated with perceived benefit of the VP activities (rho 0.27, p < 0.001), but was not true in all settings. The association was higher in the two strongly regulated settings. The external regulation strategy did generally associate weakly with perceived benefit (rho 0.17, p < 0.05) with large variations between settings.

Conclusions

The flexible student-autonomous appeal of virtual patients should not lead to the dismissal of guidance and related course activities. External teacher and peer regulation seem to be productive for increasing learners’ perceived benefit. Awareness of the interplay among teacher regulation (external) and various study strategies can increase the value of flexible web-based learning resources to students.

This is the protocol for a review and there is no abstract. The objectives are as follows: The objective of this review is to evaluate the effectiveness of virtual patient simulation as an educational intervention versus traditional learning, other types of e-Learning interventions and other forms of virtual patient simulation interventions for delivering pre-registration and post-registration healthcare professional education. We will primarily assess the impact of these interventions on learners knowledge, skills and attitudes. Our secondary objective is to assess the cost-effectiveness of these interventions.

Background

The term "virtual patients" (VPs) has been used for many years in academic publications, but its meaning varies, leading to confusion. Our aim was to investigate and categorize the use of the term "virtual patient" and then classify its use in healthcare education.

Methods

A literature review was conducted to determine all articles using the term "virtual patient" in the title or abstract. These articles were categorized into: Education, Clinical Procedures, Clinical Research and E-Health. All educational articles were further classified based on a framework published by Talbot et al. which was further developed using a deductive content analysis approach.

Results

536 articles published between 1991 and December 2013 were included in the study. From these, 330 were categorized as educational. Classifying these showed that 37% articles used VPs in the form of Interactive Patient Scenarios. VPs in form of High Fidelity Software Simulations (19%) and Virtual Standardized Patients (16%) were also frequent. Less frequent were other forms, such as VP Games.

Analyzing the literature across time shows an overall trend towards the use of Interactive Patient Scenarios as the predominant form of VPs in healthcare education.

Conclusions

The main form of educational VPs in the literature are Interactive Patient Scenarios despite rapid technical advances that would support more complex applications. The adapted classification provides a valuable model for VP developers and researchers in healthcare education to more clearly communicate the type of VP they are addressing avoiding misunderstandings.