Enhancing virtual environment-based surgical teamwork training with non-verbal communication

Virtual reality simulations for training surgical skills are increasingly used in medical education and have been shown to improve patient outcome. While advances in hardware and simulation techniques have resulted in many commercial applications for training technical skills, most of these simulators are extremely expensive and do not consider non-technical skills like teamwork and communication. This is a major drawback since recent research suggests that a large percentage of mistakes in clinical settings are due to communication problems. In addition, training teamwork can also improve the efficiency of a surgical team and as such reduce costs and workload. We present an inexpensive camera-based system for capturing aspects of non-verbal communication of users participating in virtual environment-based teamwork simulations. This data can be used for the enhancement of virtual-environment-based simulations to increase the realism and effectiveness of team communication

The effectiveness of teamwork training on teamwork behaviors and team performance : A systematic review and meta-analysis of controlled interventions

The objective of this study was to conduct a systematic review and meta-analysis of teamwork interventions that were carried out with the purpose of improving teamwork and team performance, using controlled experimental designs. A literature search returned 16,849 unique articles. The meta-analysis was ultimately conducted on 51 articles, comprising 72 (k) unique interventions, 194 effect sizes, and 8439 participants, using a random effects model. Positive and significant medium-sized effects were found for teamwork interventions on both teamwork and team performance. Moderator analyses were also conducted, which generally revealed positive and significant effects with respect to several sample, intervention, and measurement characteristics. Implications for effective teamwork interventions as well as considerations for future research are discussed

Team performance in the operating theatre

Imperial Users onl

Theoretically-Driven Infrastructure for Supporting Healthcare Teams Training at a Military Treatment Facility

The Team Resource Center (TRC) at Naval Medical Center Portsmouth (NMCP) currently hosts a tri-service healthcare teams training course three times annually . The course consists of didactic learning coupled with simulation exercises to provide an interactive educational experience for healthcare professionals. The course is also the foundation of a research program designed to explore the use of simulation technologies for enhancing team training and evaluation. The TRC has adopted theoretical frameworks for evaluating training readiness and efficacy, and is using these frameworks to guide a systematic reconfiguration of the infrastructure supporting healthcare teams training and research initiatives at NMCP

Immersive simulations with extreme teams

Extreme teams (ETs) work in challenging, high pressured contexts, where poor performance can have severe consequences. These teams must coordinate their skill sets, align their goals, and develop shared awareness, all under stressful conditions. How best to research these teams poses unique challenges as researchers seek to provide applied recommendations while conducting rigorous research to test how teamwork models work in practice. In this article, we identify immersive simulations as one solution to this, outlining their advantages over existing methodologies and suggesting how researchers can best make use of recent advances in technology and analytical techniques when designing simulation studies. We conclude that immersive simulations are key to ensuring ecological validity and empirically reliable research with ETs

P16. Introducing Peer Physical Examination

We are a new medical school (now into our eighth year) and until the 2008/09 academic year our Year One and Two students acquiredphysical examination skills by examining healthy volunteers. The Year One cohort in 2008/09 were the first to acquire these skills using Peer Physical Examination (PPE), performing the examinations on each other, and this was rolled out to involve all Year One and Twostudents this academic year.Introducing PPE involved a culture shift within the medical school, training of existing and new tutors and revisions to our written studyguide material.Over the past eighteen months we have overcome several practical and ideological challenges during the introduction of PPE as a teaching method.Our poster explains our teaching methods, the challenges encountered and the pragmatic ways in which we have navigated a course through these challenges at both an individual and organisational level. We are now able to give much clearer guidance to students and tutors with the benefit of what we have learntover the past 18 months

P15. Employing students' multilingualism and language diversity in teaching and learning

Before our innovative clinical skills session ‘Interpreting in Consultations’, we conducted an annual survey of languages spoken by students on admission, in 2006, 2007 and 2008. Froma response rate of 94% we noted that 28% of students are advanced/fluent speakers of language(s) other than English and a total of 48 languages are spoken.The session, ‘Interpreting in Consultations’, involves first and second year students who speak the same language other than English, role-playing an ‘interpreted’ consultation.Feedback from tutors and students following the session shows that using different languages serves multiple, valuable purposes, highlighting:• issues encountered with interpreters• challenges of ‘medical’ language• difficulties in transmitting a patient centred approach• how linguistic and cultural sensitivities are lost in translation.Student linguistic diversity is considerable and not used to its full potential: the single clinical skills session we report suggests there is much more to be gained. The education we design and delivermay fail to recognise what patient-centred-ness means in different languages and cultures.Future research should: consider how to make best use of multiculturalism and linguistic diversity; explore how students’ awareness of, and competence in, different languages and culturescan be developed and maintained

Workshop 07. Developing approaches to professionalism in medical students

Since the inception of our medical school seven years ago we have noticed that despite undergraduate medical students having an awareness that doctors have expected professional behaviours they have not always appreciated how professional behaviour applies to medical students. Professionalism issues have arisen both within and outside the medical school. This has been particularly evident during the introduction three years ago of peer physical examination as a means for students to acquire physical examination skills.We have been able to address these issues in several ways - At an institutional level we have both been closely involved with supporting tutors and students as issues have arisen. Challenges that have arisen have informed tutor training –helping tutors to feel empowered to deal with issues themselves. Professionalism issues are addressed in staff development sessions covering acceptable behaviours and tutors are encouraged to draw on each other for advice. For example, we involved our tutors in the development of a session which involves case vignettes around appropriate behaviour in physical examination sessions. We have developed a highly effective process of peer observation within the tutor group. Existing tutors mentor new tutors. We are proud to have developed a group of experienced clinician tutors with diverse views who have collective ownership of the teaching process. On a practical level we have raised the ‘professionalism’ thread in the students’ learning experience – via lectures, written material and discussions. For example, one of the first lectures given to the first year students focuses on professionalism and its relevance to them within both clinical and non-clinical teaching sessions and also outside the medical school. One area that continues to challenge both students and tutors is that of cultural diversity and how this sits alongside expected professional behaviours