Education Horizon-Scanning Bulletin - July 2021 Compiled by John Gale, JET Library - Mid-Cheshire NHS Foundation Trust and edited by Michael Reid ...

Education Horizon-Scanning
       Bulletin – July 2021

    Compiled by John Gale,
JET Library – Mid-Cheshire NHS
 Foundation Trust and edited by
Michael Reid, Blackpool Teaching
           Hospitals

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Contents
Dental Education ................................................................................................................. 3
    Bracing for action in the dentists’ classroom ...................................................................... 3
General Healthcare Education............................................................................................ 3
    Are flipping and groups the way to happiness? .................................................................. 3
    Taking the fear out of public speaking................................................................................ 3
    Lecturers’ last words .......................................................................................................... 4
    Training – how do you know what people need?................................................................ 4
    When gamification comes up with the goods ..................................................................... 4
    Healthcare students, mental illness, and stigma ................................................................ 5
    Teaching students information literacy – when more means better .................................... 5
    Why mobile users aren’t second-class citizens .................................................................. 5
    Attention all Scrabble players – today’s word is “moulage” ................................................ 6
    Desirable difficulty.............................................................................................................. 6
Interprofessional Education ............................................................................................... 6
    Training together, communicating better ............................................................................ 6
    Cooperation? You’d better bee-lieve it ............................................................................... 6
Medical Education ............................................................................................................... 7
    Getting to grips with the four dimensions of care................................................................ 7
    The doctor will see you – when she’s finished meditating .................................................. 7
    Catching them young in Detroit .......................................................................................... 8
    Are medical students washing their hands of Covid? ......................................................... 9
    Do ophthalmologists dream of electronic assessment? ..................................................... 9
    How to make a happy radiology trainee ............................................................................. 9
    Helping radiographers improve their image...................................................................... 10
    Widening participation virtually......................................................................................... 10
    Student volunteers – who are they and what do they get out of it? .................................. 10
    Motivation, mental health and marks................................................................................ 11
Nurse Education ................................................................................................................ 11
    When FATCOD went to Italy ............................................................................................ 11
    Psychological safety and the new nurse .......................................................................... 11
    Are dual preceptors the way forward?.............................................................................. 12
    Incubator, simulator, educator.......................................................................................... 12
    It’s not delirium, it’s just a multimedia presentation .......................................................... 12
    What do we know about emotional intelligence? .............................................................. 13
    How do midwifery students learn about ethics? ............................................................... 13
    The human aspects of going digital ................................................................................. 14

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Dental Education
Bracing for action in the dentists’ classroom
Source: BMC Medical Education
In a nutshell: Despite welcome efforts to encourage the acceptance of ethnic diversity and
homosexuality, tolerance only goes so far. To those espousing the wrong views on Brexit and
foxhunting, can be added those with misaligned teeth; sometime in the last thirty years or so it
being decided that it was better for people’s mouths to be full of complicated ironmongery for
years at a time, than to remain as God intended. In this study, Saritha Sivarajan from the
University of Malaya in Kuala Lumpur, studied the effectiveness of a flipped classroom on
teaching 40 third-year dental undergraduates wire-bending skills. Half the students were
taught using live demonstrations, the other half using a flipped-classroom approach. The
average wire-bending scores for the flipped classroom (in which students watched videos
before attempting the tasks) were higher for making an Adams clasp and for making a Z-
spring. The scores for both groups improved over time, “which may be attributed to formative
assessment”. The students were satisfied with both methods of teaching, as I am swanning
through airport security – wonky teeth and all – without setting the alarms off.
You can read the whole of this article at
https://bmcmededuc.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12909-021-02717-5

General Healthcare Education
Are flipping and groups the way to happiness?
Source: The Electronic Library
In a nutshell: Much research has made the case for the flipped classroom over the years. It’s
perhaps more of a moot point whether education is like reading (best done on one’s own) or
eating (more fun with other people) though. In this study, Qiang Jian from Xuchang University
in China, compared four different approaches: a flipped classroom; cooperative learning; a
flipped classroom and cooperative learning; and traditional classroom teaching. The study
showed significant effects of flipped classroom teaching on learning motivation and learning
outcome. Cooperative learning improved learning motivation and learning outcome and the
combination of the flipped classroom and cooperative learning also improved learning
motivation and learning outcomes. All of which leaves this author, at least, glad of the many
happy hours of solitary study afforded by a history degree, when socialising could be
embarked upon with alcohol to take the edge off. You can read the abstract of this article at
http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/EL-02-2019-0024

Taking the fear out of public speaking
Source: Communication Education
In a nutshell: My nightmares often feature arriving at a conference, chatting over coffee and
being reminded that I’m delivering the keynote speech having completely forgotten about –
and failed to prepare for – it. Public speaking gives lots of people the heebie-jeebies and in
this study a team of researchers led by Briana Stewart from George Mason University in
Virginia, studied 1,373 students enrolled in a “fundamentals of communication,” course. The
study found that the students who reported medium-to-high levels of public-speaking anxiety
before the course found that the communication course helped to reduce their levels of
anxiety, whereas students with low levels of public-speaking anxiety did not report as much of
a difference in their anxiety levels. Visits to the “communication centre,” had significant effects

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on the goal-orientation types of mastery approach, performance approach, mastery
avoidance, and performance avoidance. You can read the abstract of this article at
https://doi.org/10.1080/03634523.2021.1906923

Lecturers’ last words
Source: Communication Education
In a nutshell: As they flickered in and out of the ether like a malfunctioning digital version of
the Cheshire cat many lecturers passed on messages to their students during the throes of
the pandemic. In this study, Renee Kaufmann from the University of Kentucky, led a team of
researchers asking 297 students what messages they remembered receiving from their tutors
at the start of the pandemic. Most recalled emotional-support messages most frequently;
followed by motivation; solidarity/unifying; compliment/praise and tangible/informational
support messages. The students described how these messages influenced them in a variety
of ways, including effects on their motivation and performance, the instructor-student
relationship, and their level of confidence and morale.
You can read the abstract of this article at https://doi.org/10.1080/03634523.2021.1904144

Training – how do you know what people need?
Source: BMC Medical Education
In a nutshell: Depending on one’s point of view training-needs analyses (TNAs) are either a
useful method of market research before one embarks on a training programme, or a handy
way of deferring the evil hour when you have to stand in front of a group of students with the
Powerpoint equivalent of the back of a fag packet. In this study, a team of researchers led by
Adelais Markaki from the University of Birmingham in Alabama, reviewed studies on the use of
the Hennessy-Hicks Training Needs Analysis questionnaire. The researchers found 33 articles
which met their quality criteria. The evidence showed that “the TNA survey is widely used as a
clinical practice and educational quality-improvement tool across continents. Translation,
cultural adaptation, and psychometric testing within a variety of settings, populations and
countries consistently reveals training gaps and outcomes of targeted continuous professional
development. Furthermore, it facilitates prioritization and allocation of limited educational
resources based on the identified training needs. The TNA tool effectively addresses the
“know-do,” gap in global human resources for health by translating knowledge into action”.
You can read the whole of this article at
https://bmcmededuc.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12909-021-02748-y

When gamification comes up with the goods
Source: Journal of Interactive Learning Research
In a nutshell: Using games to teach people is not a new idea; parents have been using
Snakes and Ladders to teach their children to count, take turns, and cope with disappointment
for years now. But it has got more sophisticated and extended its reach beyond the
kindergarten to higher education and the workplace. In this study, Klaudia Bovermann from
the Open University in Germany and Theo Bastiaens from the equivalent institution in the
Netherlands, studied how gamification and blended learning affected students. 97
undergraduates took part in the study. 46 did blended learning without gamification and 51
had gamification added to their studies with points been given out in class and leader-boards
compiled. The gamification group showed a significant difference in intrinsic motivation and
collaborative learning. The students appreciated “an active engagement through the

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gamification concept, as it helped towards purposeful learning behaviour, fostered team spirit
in the working groups and supported increased collegial and professional interaction”.
You can read the abstract of this article at https://www.learntechlib.org/primary/p/184766/

Healthcare students, mental illness, and stigma
Source: BMC Medical Education
In a nutshell: From Eddie the Eagle to Eric the Eel history is full of people who embrace the
adage that just because something is difficult it doesn’t mean it’s not worth trying. This
certainly goes for reducing the stigma against people with a mental illness and in this study,
Ana Masedo from the University of Malaga, led a team of researchers studying the levels of
prejudice felt by nursing, medical, occupational therapy, and psychology students against the
mentally ill. 927 students took part in the study which found that medical and nursing students
had more negative attitudes than those studying psychology and occupational therapy. This
held true across several stigma-related themes: recovery, dangerousness, comfortability [sic],
disclosure, and discriminatory behaviour. You can read the whole of this article at
https://bmcmededuc.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12909-021-02695-8

Teaching student’s information literacy – when more means better
Source: Pennsylvania Libraries
In a nutshell: If librarians had wanted to teach people – a profession, after all, with
considerably more remuneration and social kudos – they’d have become teachers. That
doesn’t stop librarians being required – like rabbits asked to introduce themselves to a pack of
wolves – to teach information literacy to students, generating the inevitable response “just
Google it, innit”. Trying to get to grips with this process was Maria R. Barefoot from Indiana
University of Pennsylvania. She studied two groups of Research Writing students. A control
group received one session of information-literacy instruction, whilst an intervention group
received a written formative assessment and two sessions of information-literacy instruction.
“The addition of a formative assessment and a second instruction session significantly
increased motivation for conducting research in the intervention group”.
You can read the abstract of this article at http://dx.doi.org/10.5195/palrap.2017.140

Why mobile users aren’t second-class citizens
Source: International Journal of Educational Technology in Higher Education
In a nutshell: Mobiles and PCs have different advantages and disadvantages as far as
accessing the internet is concerned. PCs tend to have more-reliable connections and a larger
screen, whereas mobiles can be taken anywhere, don’t rely on a cumbersome tangle of wires
and can be more-easily used to arrange a takeaway/date/book purchase while you’re
ostensibly working. In this study, Lian Wang from Southwest Petroleum University in Chengdu
and Chun Liu from the University of Electronic Science and Technology of China (also
Chengdu), investigated “the socioeconomic characteristics of mobile-reliant users, the
association of … access preference and usage patterns, and whether a new type of digital
divide has emerged.” Their study found that mobile-reliant users were not disadvantaged
compared to non-mobile-reliant users “in terms of usage, with the development of advanced
mobile technology and the wealth of mobile-friendly content available therein”.
You can read the abstract of this article at
https://educationaltechnologyjournal.springeropen.com/articles/10.1186/s41239-021-00267-w

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Attention all Scrabble players – today’s word is “moulage”
Source: BMC Medical Education
In a nutshell: Those of us partial to the odd game of Scrabble are always on the lookout for a
new word or two to add to our vocabulary. Did you know for instance that a thole is one of
those metal rings on a boat that the oars fit into and that an aglet is a metal or plastic tube
fitted to the end of one’s shoelaces to stop them fraying? Moulage is the art of applying mock
injuries for the purpose of training emergency-response teams and other medical and military
personnel. In this article, Daniel Bauer from the University of Bern and colleagues used
photographs of skin complaints to produce an “analogue copy of the pathological finding”. This
was then digitized by scanning and processing using graphics software with the final digital file
being printed onto transfer paper. Using this technique, the researchers produced 10 different
two-dimensional transfer tattoos including haematoma, Janeway lesions, and splinter nails.
The researchers share their development process in this article which you can download at
https://bmcmededuc.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12909-021-02763-z

Desirable difficulty
Source: Journal of Applied Research in Memory and Cognition
In a nutshell: Desirable difficulty sounds like it should be an oxymoron akin to placid Italian or
technophile Herefordian. However, a desirable difficulty is a learning task that requires a
considerable but desirable amount of effort, thereby improving long-term performance.
Students don’t always buy into this intellectual equivalent of “no pain, no gain,” though and in
this article, Bridgid Finn from Educational Testing Service in New Jersey, examines how
motivation and cognition interact to influence students’ “self-regulatory learning behaviours.” In
particular she discusses students can draw on their past achievements “as the basis for task-
specific expectancies and values, which are reflected in the amount of effort and the
strategies learners deploy on learning and problem-solving tasks”.
You can read the abstract of this article at http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jarmac.2020.08.008

Interprofessional Education
Training together, communicating better
Source: BMC Medical Education
In a nutshell: Complex conversations in medicine take a different form to one’s wife
attempting to discuss allotment planting schedules while you’re trying to cook a chicken
casserole; doctors might be spared nasty burning smells and misunderstandings about
radishes, but they usually have rather more emotional complexity to contend with. In this
study, Edward Stephens from Eastern Health in Box Hill, Australia, led a team of researchers
investigating the effects of an interprofessional communication-skills workshop. The
researchers found that after the workshop clinicians were able to incorporate the
communication skills they had learned into their daily practice. “This was associated with an
improvement in confidence of clinicians in having complex discussions, in addition to a
reduction in the burden of having complex discussions. Participants responded positively to
the interdisciplinary format, reporting benefits from the learning experience that translated into
daily practice”. You can read the whole of this article at
https://bmcmededuc.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12909-021-02785-7

Cooperation? You’d better bee-lieve it
Source: Nurse Education in Practice

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In a nutshell: The bee is one of the symbols of Manchester. Some see bees as a golden
example of working together for the common good whilst others – this writer included –
contemplate a beehive and see a grotesque, overcrowded abnegation of individual liberty
reminiscent of the worst excesses of totalitarianism. You pay your money and you takes your
choice, I suppose. Now that personal liberty and responsibility are seen as the preserve of
hard-headed Thatcherites gaily running down orphans in their gold-plated Rolls Royce’s,
cooperation and collaboration are very much the order of the day and in this study, Katherine
A. Campbell from St Catherine University in Minnesota, led a team of researchers examining
“interprofessional collaboration within a clinical-scholars’ programme”. The two major themes
emerging from the interviews with the participants were Unifying the Team and Navigating
Layers of Challenge, “encompassing concepts of teamwork and programmatic context that
supported or disrupted interprofessional collaboration. This study affirms the importance of
role clarity, connectedness, intentionality and continuity within clinical teams. Moreover, faculty
identified barriers to teamwork based on workload, leadership turnover and constraining
environmental forces”. You can read the abstract of this article at
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nepr.2021.103118

Medical Education
Getting to grips with the four dimensions of care
Source: BMC Medical Education
In a nutshell: Most people know about the four dimensions of the universe: height, width,
depth and time; given most people’s fashion choices at university it’s rather a bore that time is
the only one that operates a one-way system. The four dimensions of care – as applied to
people with a long-term or terminal illness – are physical, psychological, social and spiritual,
and in this study, Jolien Pieter from Maastricht University in the Netherlands, led a team of
researchers assessing a new project to teach medical students all about them. The students
talked to a person suffering from either a long-term complaint or a terminal illness during their
clinical placements and the researchers found that both the students, and their teachers,
valued talking to an actual patient about the four dimensions of care. Reading and providing
feedback about each other’s reports was considered valuable, especially when it came to the
diversity of illnesses, the way that patients coped and communication techniques. The
researchers concluded that “students pay a lot of attention to the relationship between the
illness and the patient’s daily life, but the reflections often do not show insight in[to] the
potential relationship between the four dimensions and decisions in patient care.
You can read the whole of this article at
https://bmcmededuc.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12909-021-02681-0

The doctor will see you – when she’s finished meditating
Source: BMC Medical Education
In a nutshell: Such is the popularity of mindfulness at the moment it’s a relief to be able to
pick your way through to the cheese counter at Marks and Spencer without having to tiptoe
round lots of people sitting cross-legged while they empty their minds. It does have all sorts of
benefits though and in this study, Manuel Villarreal from the University of Warwick, led a team
of researchers following 15 GP trainees as they completed a mindful practice course.
Following the course there were statistically significant improvements in wellbeing, resilience,
mindfulness, emotional exhaustion, disengagement, and stress. The participants described a
number of benefits from the course and most said they would recommend it to colleagues.

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The researchers concluded that “including mindful practice within general practice vocational
training is feasible, and in this study, it benefited the psychological well-being of participants”.
You can read the whole of this article at
https://bmcmededuc.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12909-021-02747-z

Catching them young in Detroit
Source: Journal of the National Medical Association
In a nutshell: Detroit used to be known as the home of the American car industry and
Motown, before becoming a byword for urban decay. No doubt in 20 years’ time it will be full of
whatever the US equivalent of hipsters are, cycling around on penny farthings, cultivating
luxuriant facial hair and drinking craft beer; some might say this is an improvement, if not on
Motown, then certainly on vacant lots and drive-by shootings. In this study, Dena Ballouz from
the University of Michigan Medical School led a team of researchers investigating the
motivation of 216 Year Nine students from Cass Technical High School in Detroit enrolling in a
“medical pipeline programme,” between the school and the University of Michigan. The
students had to complete “multiple free response essays … [articulating] their reasons for
applying and their goals for participation in the programme,” which the researchers then
analysed. Four main themes emerged from the essays which were:

    •   Career aspiration
    •   Exposure to the medical field
    •   Breadth of mentorship
    •   Longitudinal professional development

Somewhat to their disappointment, one feels, the researchers did not find that “health
disparities in minority communities,” was a large factor in the students’ motivations;
reminiscent perhaps of Tony Benn lecturing 1970s trade unionists on socialism and the
brotherhood of man, only to find that they were more interested in fridge freezers and an extra
week’s holiday in Spain. You can read the abstract of this article at
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jnma.2021.05.001

Helping junior doctors teach medical students. Is it all in the script?
Source: BMC Medical Education
In a nutshell: Medical students being taught by consultants can be a little like Posh Spice
getting singing lessons from Ella Fitzgerald – the gap in wisdom and knowledge making the
whole experience rather unsatisfactory on both sides. However, junior doctors often feel
unprepared for teaching medical students suffering from a lack of confidence, “suboptimal
teaching space,” and insufficient time. In this study, Nicholas R. Zessis from Northwestern
University Feinberg School of Medicine, led a team of researchers investigating the use of
“teaching scripts of general paediatrics topics accessible via a smartphone application”.
Before the implementation of the app 75% of the 44 junior doctors in the study spent less than
five minutes per teaching session – after it was introduced 67% said they spent more than five
minutes. Before the app 25% of junior doctors said they taught students once a day,
compared to 55% after the app. There was a statistically significant correlation between app
use and increased frequency of teaching and the students’ ranking of the teaching increased
from an average of 2.4 out of six, to 3.4 out of six. You can read the whole of this article at
https://bmcmededuc.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12909-021-02782-w

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Are medical students washing their hands of Covid?
Source: BMC Medical Education
In a nutshell: It’s an ill wind that, proverbially at least, blows no one any good and the Covid
pandemic has been a great boon for the makers of hand sanitizer, assuming, that is, that they
can find any alcohol left after everyone has spent lockdown drowning their sorrows. In this
study, a team of researchers led by Guwani Liyanage from the University of Sri
Jayewardenepura in Sri Lanka, studied the knowledge of, attitudes to and practice in,
handwashing of 225 final-year medical students. The students’ average score for knowledge
was 3.35 out of six, although 31.6% scored below three. Most (78.9%) had positive attitudes,
but only 36.4% reported “adequate,” hand-hygiene performance in all eight dimensions
measured by the researchers. Only 55.6% remembered to wash their hands after checking
people’s blood pressure, and only 66.2% carried a hand sanitizer in their pocket. Lack of time,
skin irritation, and workload were seen as the main barriers to hand hygiene and frequent
reminders, supervision, and interactive teaching were suggested as methods for improving
compliance. You can read the whole of this article at
https://bmcmededuc.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12909-021-02783-9

Do ophthalmologists dream of electronic assessment?
Source: BMC Medical Education
In a nutshell: “You can’t fatten a pig by weighing it,” is one of those sayings apocryphally
attributed to farmers but nowadays more often used by people who spend more time
complying with the arcane and arbitrary demands of assessors than they do getting on with
their primary business. Monitoring the scales as far as 24 ophthalmology junior doctors were
concerned was a team of researchers led by Hamidreza Hasani from the University of Medical
Sciences in Iran. The researchers compared sundry different methods of assessing the junior
doctors – attendance, logbook, scholarship and research skills, journal-club, outpatient-
department participation, multiple-choice questions, objective structured clinical examinations
(OSCEs), and professionalism/360-degree appraisal – with an online patient-management
problem, and a modified “electronic,” OSCE. The researchers concluded that electronic
patient-management problems “can be used alongside all conventional tools, and overall, e-
assessment methods could replace currently used conventional methods. Combined
electronic PMP and me-OSCE can be used as a replacement for currently used gold-standard
assessment methods, including 360-degree assessment”.
You can read the whole of this article at
https://bmcmededuc.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12909-021-02759-9

How to make a happy radiology trainee
Source: Clinical Imaging
In a nutshell: One could argue that attempts to treat NHS-workers’ psychological problems
on an individual basis is a bit like calling out a vet to treat a duck, then throwing it back into a
pond full of battery acid, abandoned bicycles and plastic bags. In this article, Sean D. Raj from
Baylor University Medical Centre in Texas led a team of researchers arguing for a different
approach, suggesting several changes to training programmes to minimise burnout and
promote junior doctors’ wellness. They argue “creating a culture of support, promoting a
positive work environment, building a cohesive team, and encouraging wellness both inside
and outside the workplace stands to create engaged, happy, and motivated trainees who will
hopefully [sic] continue to promote those strategies as they advance their careers”.
You can read the abstract of this article at http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.clinimag.2020.12.019

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Helping radiographers improve their image
Source: Radiography
In a nutshell: Those of us struggling to produce a non-blurry photograph of our driving licence
as we attempt to acquire a “Covid pass,” for our summer holidays can only doff our caps to
radiographers as they attempt to capture images of the inside of the human body for the
purposes of medical diagnosis. There’s always room for improvement though and in this
study, T. Santner from Diagnosezentrum Belmont in Switzerland led a team of researchers
studying the effectiveness of intensive training of already-experienced radiographers –
“including the embedment [sic] of evaluation tools and building a new routine workflow”. The
researchers found that the training led to a “significant improvement in the image quality of
mammograms and an increase in motivation and professional wellbeing of the radiographers”.
You can read the abstract of this article at https://doi.org/10.1016/j.radi.2021.05.006

Widening participation virtually
Source: BMC Medical Education
In a nutshell: Getting into medical school – a fraught business at the best of times – became
significantly more cumbersome over the course of the pandemic. For those universities intent
on whittling out potential serial killers via a face-to-face interview, rather than relying on who
managed to buy the best personal statement off the internet, the process had to be done
virtually. At the same time more people applied to study medicine. But what effect did these
developments have on students from less-well-off backgrounds? In this study, Emily R. Bligh
from Sheffield University Medical School led a team of researchers attempting to find out by
surveying schoolchildren attending Sheffield Neuroscience Society International Virtual
Conference in February 2021. 76.7% of the students had had work experience cancelled due
to Covid-19, and 36.7% had taken part in virtual work experience. “Observe GP,” and “Medic
Mentor,” were each specified as virtual opportunities in 20% of the answers. After the
conference the schoolchildren felt significantly more confident in applying to medical school
and were more prepared to give a presentation. You can read the whole of this article at
https://bmcmededuc.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12909-021-02770-0

Student volunteers – who are they and what do they get out of it?
Source: BMC Medical Education
In a nutshell: The popular image of the American medical system is of wild dogs gnawing at
the amputation stumps of the poor, while the rich drive by in limousines on their way to their
ninth MRI scan trying to track down the problem with their troublesome little toe. While the US
welfare system can be threadbare and inadequate human kindness exists there too and many
medical students run free clinics for impoverished people. In this study, a team of researchers,
led by Fadi W. Adel from Mayo Clinic in Minnesota surveyed medical students about their
participation in the Long School of Medicine’s Student-Run Free Clinics programme. While
most of the volunteers (62%) were women and from “non-traditional,” backgrounds (67%) the
difference was not statistically significant and there were no statistically significant differences
in academic performance between volunteers and non-volunteers. However, the volunteers
agreed that taking part in the free clinics emphasised aspects of medicine that were either not
represented at all or underemphasised in the formal medical-school curriculum.
You can read the whole of this article at
https://bmcmededuc.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12909-021-02793-7

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Motivation, mental health and marks
Source: International Quarterly of Community Health Education
In a nutshell: Rather like the Belgians and the Poles the Kurds are one of those unfortunate
peoples, perfectly satisfactory in all other aspects, who find themselves, from time to time, in
the wrong part of the world as far as other countries are concerned. Despite being persecuted
and oppressed by Turks and Iraqis present-day Kurds have somehow managed to set up a
university, train doctors within it, and research how the students therein cope with their
studies. In this article, Parinaz Mahdavi from the Kurdistan University of Medical Sciences led
a team of researchers investigating the links between achievement motivation, mental health,
and academic success in a sample of 430 medical students. The researchers found that
mental health was significantly correlated with achievement motivation, but had no correlation
with educational success, although there was a significant relationship between achievement
motivation and academic achievement. You can read the abstract of this article at
http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0272684X211025932

Nurse Education
When FATCOD went to Italy
Source: Nurse Education Today
In a nutshell: Mention FATCOD and Italy and one’s mind turns to flaky white fish, in a rich
tomato sauce with garlic and capers, all washed down with white wine and followed by a good
dollop of gelato. In nurse-education terms, however, FATCOD stands for the Frommelt
Attitudes Towards Care of the Dying questionnaire and in this study a team of researchers led
by Chiara Mastroianni from the Antea Foundation Palliative Care Centre in Rome, used it to
explore 1,193 Italian nursing students’ attitudes towards caring for dying patients. The
researchers found that Italian nursing students seemed to have more-positive attitudes
towards caring for dying patients than nurses in most other countries. They believed that
caring for a dying patient was a formative, useful experience, although they did not feel
adequately prepared in practice. Higher (i.e., better) scores on the FATCOD scale were
associated with training in palliative care and having previously worked with dying patients.
The students manifested more negative attitudes when they perceived patients losing hope of
recovering, and patient’s family members interfering with health professionals’ work.
Uncertainties emerged around knowledge of opioid drugs, decision-making, concepts of death
and dying, management of mourning, and relational aspects of patient care.
You can read the abstract of this article at https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nedt.2021.104991

Psychological safety and the new nurse
Source: Journal of Nursing Management
In a nutshell: Many people find that if they ask too many questions about how to do things,
they get told off for bothering people every five minutes and if they soldier on and tackle it in
the way they deem most appropriate they get told that they’ve made an almighty pig’s ear of
things and admonished “if you didn’t know what you were doing, why didn’t you just ask”?
Having a high level of psychological safety should mean that neither of these scenarios arise
in this study, Bret Lyman from Brigham Young University in Utah led a team of researchers
who studied newly graduated nurses’ experience of it. The researchers interviewed 13 new
nurses and found that four themes emerged from their interviews with them:

     •   Building credibility

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•   Making personal connections
     •   Feeling supported
     •   Seeking safety

You can read the abstract of this article at http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/jonm.13006

Are dual preceptors the way forward?
Source: Nurse Education in Practice
In a nutshell: Universities are, in some senses, a sealed system. Ignorance, incompetence
and wandering minds aside nothing supervenes in the transmission of knowledge between
teacher and pupil. Once out on the wards it is, of course, a very different matter for nursing
students with patients, paperwork and pestilence all putting a spanner in the works of the
educational machinery. In this study a team of researchers led by Anne-Kari Johannessen
from Oslo Metropolitan University, examined the effect of dual preceptors; nurses who worked
for both the hospital and in the nursing faculty. 261 second-year nursing students took part in
the study which found that “the dual preceptor team on top of one-to-one supervision did not
interfere negatively with the clinical learning environment”. However, having a dual preceptor
did not make up for having a poor relationship with a clinical preceptor and the association
between a “strained relationship,” with one’s clinical preceptor and a poor rating for the clinical
learning-environment as a whole still remained. You can read the abstract of this article at
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nepr.2021.103119

Incubator, simulator, educator
Source: Nurse Education in Practice
In a nutshell: Tiny, delicate, somebody’s pride and joy, hooked up to an array of pulsating
machinery and alarms – it’s hardly surprising that nursing students are a little apprehensive
when faced with looking after premature babies. In an attempt to make the process rather less
nerve-wracking a team of researchers led by Zohour Ibrahim Rashwan from Alexandria
University in Egypt, studied the effectiveness of a “scenario-based clinical simulation [SBCS]”.
60 students took part in the study. After listening to a lecture and watching a demonstration of
nursing procedures half of them attended an interactive SBCS session, which focused on the
holistic care of premature babies. The researchers found that all the participants who took part
in the SBCS session had “good,” skills afterwards, compared to only 20% of those in the
control group. 43.3% of the students in the control group experienced severe anxiety,
compared to only 6.7% of those who attended the SBCS session.
You can read the abstract of this article at https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nepr.2021.103121

It’s not delirium, it’s just a multimedia presentation
Source: Nurse Education Today
In a nutshell: It’s easy to lose touch with reality in a hospital. Quite apart from the effects of
any illness there’s not always natural light, one’s usual rhythms of work, social life and putting
the bins out are disrupted, and one is liable to be interrupted at all hours of the day and night
to be given drugs or have needles stuck into sundry parts of one’s anatomy. One might have
thought that the last thing patients needed would be to wake up and find a nursing student at
the end of the bed playing the pan pipes, mounting a light show and engaging in interpretive
dance but in this study, a team of researchers led by Kendra L. Rieger from Trinity Western
University in Canada studied “an innovative assignment in which students created an arts-

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based multimedia knowledge translation presentation to communicate systematic-review
findings to patients”. Most students (68%) were satisfied with the assignment and 77% said
they had learned from it, with 75% saying it would have benefits for their future practice. Age,
enjoyment of and experience with the arts, type of motivation, and valuing evidence-informed
practice were significant predictors of getting more out of the assignment. “Students reported
experiencing relational and engaged learning, translating research findings creatively and
clearly, understanding complex research concepts through experiential learning, and having
frustrations and pragmatic concerns”. What the patients made of it all is anyone’s guess –
perhaps they chalked it all up to delirium. You can read the abstract of this article at
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nedt.2021.105030

What do we know about emotional intelligence?
Source: Nurse Education in Practice
In a nutshell: Members of Mensa might be adept at spotting the odd one out in a series of
dodecahedrons or deciding the next item in the list after kumquat, armadillo, marzipan,
stalactite and bidet but the fact that they enjoy wasting their time on this kind of guff and enjoy
telling everyone how good they are at it might suggest a certain lack of emotional intelligence,
which, as it happens, is a rather-more important quality for success in life. In this article, a
team of researchers led by Manon Dugué from Université Rouen Normandie reviewed the
literature on emotional intelligence and nursing students. They found that it had many benefits
and that several training programmes aimed at developing it had been shown to be effective.
You can read the abstract of this article at https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nepr.2021.103124

How do midwifery students learn about ethics?
Source: Nurse Education Today
In a nutshell: For trainee nurses and midwives ethics is a bit like driving – easy to practise on
wide, quiet, suburban avenues; rather harder on narrow city streets and multi-lane
roundabouts. It’s taught in the classroom, but it’s unclear how students pick it up when they
get out onto the wards. Attempting to unravel this problem was a team of researchers led by
Michele Megregian from Oregon Health & Science University who interviewed 39 students
from three graduate midwifery programmes. Three themes emerged from the interviews:

     •   Current experience and identified needs
     •   The preceptor dilemma
            o The critical role of modelling ethics
            o Powerlessness within interprofessional conflicts
     •   Complicated relationships: advocacy, autonomy, and choice

The students relied primarily upon clinical preceptors rather than classroom discussion as a
significant source of learning ethics content and ethical behaviour. The students called for
explicit identification of ethics learning when it occurs, as well as increased opportunities for
reflection and integration of their experiences. You can read the abstract of this article at
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nedt.2021.105035

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The human aspects of going digital
Source: Nurse Education in Practice
In a nutshell: Such is the speed of the onward march of all things digital one would not be
surprised to wake up to find a barcode on one’s forehead and a chip inserted into a
superfluous piece of one’s anatomy aimed at providing a system upgrade to the over 50s. But
what do the people – specifically nursing students – on the end of all this technology make of
it? In this study, a team of researchers led by Torbjørg Traeland Meum from the Department
of Health and Nursing Science in Norway, interviewed 10 students and teachers from a first-
year nursing course about their use of a new digital platform called Canvas. Three themes
emerged from the researchers’ interviews:

     •   Pedagogical methodology affects learning and social fellowship
     •   Need for varied, high-quality forms of learning
     •   Need for structure and predictability

The researchers concluded that their study “emphasised the importance of digital competence
involving professional knowledge and skills to facilitate the educational use of digital
technologies”. You can read the abstract of this article at
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nepr.2021.103136

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