Professor David Gerrard retires
The ELM Programme owes a great deal to the inspiration and leadership provided by Professor David Gerrard, whose recent retirement event was attended by many of his former ELM colleagues and friends associated with the Otago Medical School. As the inaugural Convenor for the Clinical Skills programme module, David introduced much of the now established curriculum aimed at providing our year 2/3 students with their foundation in clinical skills before they enter their ALM hospital-based training. We wish him all the very best for his retirement.
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Creating a Positive Learning Environment (the CAPLE Project)
Health professional students commonly describe mixed experiences in their interactions with staff within busy clinical areas. These experiences both positive and negative are described within the literature by students both internationally and nationally. Recent media reports from the NZMSA and the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons attest to the fact that not all students fare well during their training. The toll on students can be significant, from doubts about career choice, failure to learn, stress and mental health issues, and fostering persistent negative behaviours to the next generation of students.
With the support of the Division of Health Sciences, the Dunedin School of Medicine, and the School of Nursing, Otago Polytechnic the CAPLE team is preparing to initiate a pilot set of interventions to be trialled in a clinical department in the latter half of 2016. The CAPLE team is made up of 5 members who have all bring experience training and working as a health professional.
The CAPLE project pilot will be implemented into a clinical area where we will engage actively with staff through participatory action research. Researchers from the CAPLE project will work closely alongside clinical staff, providing interventions that have been selected and determined by staff. Pre and post testing of the intervention, as well as information collected during the intervention, will provide data to determine the success of the pilot.
Two literature reviews have already been completed. The first identified the nature of the problem for students, while the second explored interventions that have been tried and their success or otherwise – these findings have informed the basis for our own interventions. Prior to implementing the CAPLE project, medical and nursing students will be surveyed to seek further local information on what they view as a positive learning environment.
Following testing of the CAPLE programme this year, we hope to expand the project in 2017 by exploring what would work in other clinical areas.
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CAPLE team: from left, Alfie Blakey, Lynley Anderson, Kelby Smith-Han (not pictured: Liz Berryman, Tim Wilkinson).
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