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News

Miami Thoughts
22/10/09 - Dr. Colin Clarke

The International Conference on Communication in Healthcare 2009 was held in Miami from 4 - 7 October. This biannual event was organised by the American Academy on Communication in Healthcare in partnership with the European Association for Communication in Healthcare. I attended the conference in order to present emerging findings from a pilot study into the relationship between personality factors and healthcare communication, and to learn about current trends in healthcare communication and research. Right from the initial poster session I found a number of interesting presentations that were relevant to our work at the ExPERT Centre. In particular Joao Romano’s examination of pharmacist-customer communication and D’Agostino and Byland’s coding of non-verbal behaviours, which has direct application to my ExPERT Centre research award.

The following day I was particularly enthused by the Paired Observation and Video Editing (POVE) project from the University of Washington. In particular I liked their observation form that is based on behavioural anchors (something that Jane Portlock and Kira Stearns and I are working on), and the use of video essays for assessment. Whilst formative assessment is provided, by staff, for each consultation a student conducts, summative assessment is based on two videos that are produced by student pairs. One video is a self reflection on the pairs’ consultation skills that depicts their original level of competence, the struggles they have faced, their growth, and mastery, using clips from 40 real consultations. Whilst the second video focuses on teaching one aspect of consultation skills, both are presented by the students to faculty members. The former would be an interesting method for assessing communication skills in undergraduate education.

In contrast, a session on day two that considered the idea of teaching communication through reflection was thought provoking because the presenters considered institutional reflection as well as personal reflection. The ideas such as perspective-taking, detection of bias and self awareness were anchored in a meta-cognitive framework and considered alongside social, institutional and professional goals. I was especially struck by an example whereby the defacement of a poster was used to explore and reflect on an institution’s values, rather than to search for the perpetrator.

Two presentations were given by University of Portsmouth staff which were well received. Ms Helena Herrera, School of Pharmacy and Biomedical Sciences presented a paper that related to our work on providing consultation skills practice for students undertaking a FdSc in Medicines Management, whereas I presented the emerging finding from research into the impact of personality factors on consultation skills. I was quite surprised by the good attendance at my presentation because it was the last presentation, in the last session, on the last day of the conference! In fact, the audience showed a positive interest in the research, with one person from Holland indicating that he was about to start a similar project, and an educator from the USA pointing me in the direction of complementary work using the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator.

All in all this was a good conference, during which I met people from a range of professions who were willing to share their experience of providing communication skills training in a Healthcare setting. A number of these experiences and novel solutions could be applied to and enhance student education at Portsmouth.

Qualitative Research Interest Group (QRIG)

Dr Guy Van De Walle is continuing to provide training and development in qualitative research. QRIG sessions will begin on 22 September 2009. Further information, together with a complete list of dates can be found on our Research page.

Research dissemination

October 2009 will be a busy month for ExPERT Centre staff and their colleagues who will be presenting 5 papers at 3 separate international conferences: The International Society for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (ISSOTL) conference, Frontiers in Education conference and The American Academy on Communication in Healthcare conference.

The papers are:

Paramedic and ODP OSCE's at the ExPERT Centre

During April and May 2009 Paramedic and Operating Department Practitioner students, have been taking their Objective Structured Clinical Examinations (OSCE's) here at the ExPERT Centre. The OSCE's have been examining various skills such as airway management, care of the critically ill, adult and paediatric advanced life support. Using the Human Patient Simulator (HPS) and various other Hi fidelity mannequins in the Operating Theatre, Ward area and Biomedical laboratory, students were able to simulate their skills through scenarios enacted at the centre.

This collaboration with SHSSW, the Ambulance service and the ExPERT Centre has proved very successful and we look forward to building on this over the coming year.

Congratulations!

We extend our congratulations to Manish Malik of the Department of Electronic and Computer Engineering on being awarded the University Learning and Teaching Fellow Award, and to our own Phil Ashwell on becoming a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (HEA).

Finally, we would also like to congratulate Helena Herrera of the School of Pharmacy and Biomedical Sciences, and our own Colin Clarke for receiving the Foundation Direct Prize 2009.

Well done to all of you!

Research Seminar - Using human patient simulators to teach physiology to students of basic biomedical science: Dr Richard Helyer.

On 24 February 2009 Dr Richard Helyer and colleague from Bristol University presented an interesting seminar that provided a practical demonstration of using a Human Patient Simulator (HPS) to improve the student experience when teaching physiology. The 'live' simulation session demonstrated fundamental physiological principles concerned with the control of breathing in a manner that encourages students to take a hypothetico-deductive approach to learning, and was well received by all who attended.

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