For the first time, medical and nursing students nearing the end of their courses are being examined on their ability to communicate and cooperate with one another when caring for an acutely ill patient. Working side-by-side, they give the best possible care to an advanced dummy in the Simulator Center in the West at Östra Hospital.
This course module highlights how important it is to communicate clearly in a busy clinic environment and how people can work together in a team to manage stress.
“I hope that the simulation will show me how I can improve the way I work and communicate with other people,” says medical student Sofia Gillén, just before going into the room where the dummy patient is waiting in a hospital bed.
So far the students have generally taken a very positive approach to finding out more about each other’s professions. Like many other students, Sofia Gillén would like to see more joint modules that offer the opportunity to practice cooperation and communication.
“We have taken part in a lot of simulations earlier in our course, but this is the first one together with the nursing students. On one occasion, other medical students played the role of nurses and I thought at the time that it would have been good if real nursing students had been taking part instead,” she says.
The nursing program has a number of joint courses with trainee occupational therapists and physiotherapists, but not with doctors. Nursing student Sara Bågesund would also like to have seen more joint modules:
“It’s great that we can work together here. We do sometimes meet medical students at college and on the wards, but I would have liked to have taken part in joint modules with medical students earlier in the course,” she says.
The new module and the examination have been introduced primarily with the aim of increasing interprofessional learning on the medical program. This is an aspect which was criticized by the Swedish Higher Education Authority during its evaluation last year. The Sahlgrenska Academy has now set up a committee for interprofessional learning to establish more joint modules involving students on different courses.
“As part of these activities, we have also decided to hold a day on the theme of human rights and the right to health for all the students at the academy on all the courses during the first semester,” says Silvana Naredi, vice dean for education at the Sahlgrenska Academy.
When the simulation starts, it is like a scene from ER. The students play their parts, examining and caring for the dummy with the same commitment they would show to a real patient. The dummy is controlled from a control room where an operator can also play the patient’s voice when the care team communicate with him.
The module lasts for two days. On the first day, the students practice together in a realistic clinic environment in the Simulator Center in the West and then discuss their experiences with one another. On the second day, the examination seminar is held. Among other things, this involves the students drawing up their own personal development plan, which focuses on cooperation and communication. The examination day gives the students time to work on improving their development plans together with their simulation group. The examination takes the form of a seminar where the students report on their findings in small groups to two examiners, one from each profession.
The module on interprofessional learning for nursing and medical students takes place at the start of the 6th semester for nursing students, as part of the Clinical care course, and in the 11th semester for medical students, as part of the Pediatrics, child and youth psychiatry course. The module has been designed by Liisa Carlzon (medical program/simulation center), Camilla Eide (nursing program), Tine Högberg (medical program), and Marie Walther (medical program).
The Simulation Center in the West is run by the R&D unit at Sahlgrenska University Hospital to provide basic, further and supplementary education for staff and students in the Västra Götaland region and at the University of Gothenburg.
You can find out more about the Simulation Center in the West here: http://www.vgregion.se/Simulatorcentrum