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Staff within the Clinical Skills Centre are active locally, nationally and internationally in developing the profile of the Centre and University as well as maintain their Personal Development. News on Conference attendance and staff can be found on this page.

Clinical Skills Centre Newsletter

A pdf copy of the March 2012 Clinical Skills Centre Newsletter is available by clicking the following link Newsletter3_12


Clinical Skills Managed Educational Network Conference

Friday 18th March 2011

ADVANCING RESEARCH IN CLINICAL SKILLS EDUCATION

for the delivery of safe patient care

In early 2010 CS MEN invited proposals from across Scotland for grants to support research and development in clinical skills education that demonstrated a clear benefi­t to the patient experience and patient safety. Nine proposals, including two Masters projects, were awarded funding and this conference will showcase some of their work.

The conference will take place on Friday 18th March from 10am-3.30pm at the Stirling Management Centre, University of Stirling. Attendance is free and lunch will be provided.

Professor Philip Cachia will open the conference as NES Executive lead for clinical skills. There will be a keynote address followed by presentations from a selection of the researchers/research teams.

The presentations will be as follows:

Podcasts - University of Glasgow

Simulated Patients - University of Edinburgh

Significant Event Analysis - University of Edinburgh & Stirling Simulation Centre

Laparoscopic Simulation - University of Dundee

Peer Teaching of Clinical Skills - Robert Gordon University

New Doctors & Acute Care Scenarios - University of Edinburgh

Video for Student Nurses - Napier University


We have had a good response from clinical skills educators and healthcare practitioners from all over Scotland and are expecting between 70 and 100 delegates on the day. If you would like to register, contact Lynne Egan at: l.e.egan@dundee.ac.uk


Managed Educational Network

Safe Communications Resource

This pack written by Jean Ker and Cathy Jackson (St Andrews) and developed by CS MEN outlines the evidence-base for the use of a number of communication skills techniques which can be used in a healthcare setting to share information about the status of a patient or to handover information about patients between healthcare professionals as part of a patient’s journey. The pack will be of help to any healthcare practitioner currently working in the NHS in either primary or secondary care.

The resource was developed to enable practitioners to develop their knowledge and skills in learning safe communication skills for health care practice. It is interactive enabling the learner to incorporate their experience from out with the workplace, building from their own intrinsic capability to communicate and to incorporate knowledge, skills and standard professional behaviours in safe communication. The programme is an introduction to all those working in health care practice to raise their awareness of the impact their ability to communicate has on patient care. It is not comprehensive but gives an excellent overview of areas of safe communications practice.

The programme has been structured into five learning units: a core unit (Safety and communication issues in health care practice) and four optional units (Safe communication with patients; Safe communication with colleagues; Communication issues related to safety within the organisation; Safe communication practices utilising different mediums). Learning is enhanced by the use of specially developed videos and interactive quizzes can be found at the end of each unit. A pilot version can be found at http://elearning.scot.nhs.uk:8080/intralibrary/IntraLibrary?command=open-preview&learning_object_key=i246n1325703t and the full resource is to be launched at the CS MEN R&D day - Advancing Research in Clinical Skills Education at Stirling Management Centre, 18th March 2011.


Student Selected Component (SSC)

Caring for People with Learning Disabilities & Complex Needs

The Clinical Skills Centre Patient Bank Team, have just completed a very successful SSC in Learning Disabilities with Maureen Philip (Pamis)  Robert Muirhead (Lecturer in Nursing, University of Dundee) and Nic Richards NHS Tayside.
The four week multi-professional SSC module for the 2nd and 3rd year medical students was in collaboration with  staff from the University of Dundee, NHS Tayside, private and public care homes and members of the public who live with disabilities. The module was delivered through interactive lectures, workshops and visits ranging from children encompassing schools to adults who require adult services and residential areas. The students were encouraged to have a “hands” on approach where applicable.  This has been a very informative SSC and giving not only the students but staff new knowledge and skills and the Patient Bank Team would like to thank everyone who has been involved in making this a very enjoyable experience and great success.


Scottish Clinical Skills Network

11th Annual Conference

Clinical Skills in the 21st Century

This year the annual SCSN Conference is being held at the University of St Andrews in the new Medical & Biological Sciences Building on 15th & 16th September.

The flyer and call for abstracts have been sent out and planning for the Conference is well under way.

Hopefully this year there will be no “unscheduled” drama and we can all stay in the building!!


Literature Reviewing Workshop

23rd March 2011

Graham Nimmo & Chris Cairns of the Scottish Clinical Skills Network will be running a “Literature Reviewing” workshop on 23 March 2011 from 10am to 4pm.  The workshop will be held in the Scottish Clinical Simulation Centre, Forth Valley Hospital, Larbert.

Further details on registration etc will be available on the website shortly. www.scsn.scot.nhs.uk

Awards

Abstracts

Remote access to skills education: evaluation of the mobile clinical skills unit for Scotland  JK Stevenson, S Race, J Morse, J Ker (Managed Educational Network)  4th International Clinical Skills Conference in Prato (May 2011)

Development of a National e-Learning Resource for Safe Communication A Baker1, JK Stevenson1, C Jackson2, J Ker1 (Managed Educational Network) 4th International Clinical Skills Conference in Prato (May 2011)

“The Effect of a New Operating Room Etiquette Course on Medical Students Operating Room Etiquette Skills” (Roddy McLeod) Canadian Orthopaedic Association St John’s Newfoundland Convention (July 2011)

 

Workshops

“How should we be teaching and assessing procedural clinical skills?” (Roddy McLeod) 4th International Clinical Skills Conference Prato Italy (May 2011)


Awards

In November 2010, Roddy McLeod gained the Fellow Higher Education Academy (FHEA) Certificate of Recognition.  The benefits of HEA accreditation include giving support to institutions for the professional development and recognition of their staff and demonstrating to students and other stakeholders national collaboration with the UK Professional Standards Framework.


ASME Conference November 2010

Researching Medical Education,

We attend ASME’s one day researching medical education conference in London in November.  Professor Kirsti Lonka, University of Helsinki, delivered one of the keynote speeches updating us on the new understanding in medical education and literate expertise while Professor Cees van der Vleuten, Maastricht University, shared his experiences of programmatic assessment and new developments in assessment with the audience.  Julie, with her surgical background, picked up useful tips from Professor Gunther Kress’s “Learning in the Operating Theatre” plenary while both Julie and Lynn enjoyed Louise Morley’s controversial opening plenary “Misogyny posing as Measurement: Disrupting the Feminisation Crisis Discourse” which focused on her experiences both in this country as well as her work in Ghana and Tanzania.

With Julie and Lynn embarking on their PhD studies, attendance of the research workshops was essential.  They both found the “How to write a research question” workshop as well as the session on “How to write a research proposal” extremely useful for their current work.  An update on “Researching changes in practice” rounded off the conference for them, with useful research insights being gained.

For those who were unable to attend the conference, the keynote videos and interviews with the keynote speakers are available on line, along with the presentations from many of the workshops.

Julie Smith & Lynn Urquhart

Clinical Education Research Fellows


Visitors to the Clinical Skills Centre

In January, Andrea Fox-Hiley, Annette Clarkson & colleagues from the Medical Education Centre, St James’s University Hospital, Leeds visited the Centre and met with Jean & Kevin

In February, we had a visit from Associate Professor Dr Waranun Buajeeb, Associate Professor Sosmchai Urapepon, Assistant Professor Bundhit Jirajariyavej and Associate Professor Pornrachanee

Sawaengkit,  from Faculty of Dentistry, Mahidol University, Thailand.  This was a combined visit to Dental Hospital, Centre for Medical Education and the Clinical Skills Centre

The 2nd group of visitors from Tianjin who are spending 12 weeks in the Medical School had a tour of the Centre facilities.  Following an introduction Nikhil Patravali gave a presentation on various aspects of the Clinical Skills Centre

Mr Sandy McDonald, Professor Peter Howie & Mr Graham Wynd who are the Trustees of the Dow Memorial Trust Fund visited the newly completed Dow IT Simulation Suite on 10th February.  They were given a tour of the new facility 

Caroline Needham, Lecturer in Forensic & Medical Art from the Centre for Anatomy & Human Identification visited the Centre on 18th February with some of the current students from the College of Life Sciences.  They had a tour of the Dow Simulation Suite and had a discussion with Jean & George