Linking placements to postgrad education
Dr Cathy Haigh from the School of Rural Health Latrobe Valley & West Gippsland attended this year’s Australian New Zealand Association for Health Professional Educators (ANZAHPE) conference on the Gold Coast. She gave an oral presentation on “Effects of Structuring Clinical Handover to Support Learning in Medical Students and Junior Doctors”.
“My presentation was scheduled in the last session of the last day, but was surprisingly well attended and generated a lively debate about the differences in education across different health professional groups,” she said.
“The intention is to continue this research to develop a teaching resource to support students learning from real clinical interactions, and that will vertically integrate clinical placements across Years 3B and 5D, in particular, and link these to postgraduate medical education.”
This year the conference was held at Griffith Health Centre at the Gold Coast campus of Griffith University. The $150 million facility operates in conjunction with the new 750-bed University Hospital and houses all health programs for the university on the one campus. It is certainly an impressive site both in terms of education and service delivery.
The pre-conference workshop on ‘Aligning Learning Experiences for Healthcare Students and Practitioners with Particular Learning Outcomes’ explored the challenges of learning in the workplace. Facilitated by Professor Stephen Billett, who was also a keynote speaker, it was a consideration that is very relevant for those of us coordinating curriculum delivery and supporting students during their clinical placement years, 3B, 4C and 5D.
Another keynote speaker, Dr Sarah Yardley, reported on her research with students learning in situ, describing the theory-to-practice gap and the frequently reported observation ‘that’s not how it works in the real world’. This disconnect can be a cause for concern for School of Rural Health students and is an issue that we would like to describe and address by further strengthening the links between the communities of practice (healthcare and academia) at our sites.
“The majority of the themes – innovation in health professional education, assessment, competencies and evidence, and theory-to-practice – very much resonated with me,” said Cathy. “These areas are where we are directing our efforts in terms of medical education curriculum development and delivery, eg the Continuous Clinical Skills Curriculum initiative and local delivery of patient safety teaching and establishing and extending our research profile.”