What do Dietetic students think Professionalism entails?

Peer reviewedPublisher PD

May I have your consent? Informed consent in clinical trials- feasibility in emergency situations

Clinical researchers in acute emergency settings are commonly faced with the difficulty of satisfying the conventional ethical requirement of obtaining informed consent, whilst ensuring a representative group of patients is recruited into studies. We discuss our own experience in addressing institutional ethical requirements to obtain informed consent in a multi-centre trial, recruiting highly agitated patients in the emergency setting in Melbourne, Australia. We suggest that, through the application of existing ethical and legal frameworks and pre-emptive communication with the key stakeholders in ethics committees, hospital insurers and legal representatives, a balance can be struck between ethical and legal requirements on the one hand, and the integrity of the research question, on the other.published_or_final_versio

Assessing Competence of NHS Consultants: Challenges and Possible Solutions

Even a mention of formal assessment of senior clinicians can be a contentious issue, to say least, when revalidation is said to be firmly in place in NHS-UK for almost half a decade. Since revalidation is accepted as a standard modality of assessment of performance, some colleagues in NHS wonder ‘stir up a hornets’ nest,’ when the authors allude to limitations of revalidation because poorly performing senior NHS clinicians may ‘slip through the net.’ NHS consultants have clinical as well as training roles. Fundamentally, this assessment (revalidation) is meant to ensure the safety of the public and mitigates the risk of disciplinary action by the GMC. Unfortunately, a disciplinary action is often the first sign of underperformance. In fact, the Bristol and Shipman inquiries have underscored the importance of the non-clinical and behavioural skills like communication, teamworking, personal organization and leadership are as important as clinical skills. Rather than considered an assessment tool, an annual appraisal is aimed to facilitate and improve the way NHS consultants work and provide services. The authors have to wait for five years, to assess the efficacy of the system that was introduced with much ‘fanfare’ since it was projected as a panacea for poor performance by ’bad doctors.’ The objectives of this article are to contextualize the issue of the underperformance among senior clinicians in the current NHS environment and to conceptualize the idea that their performance as trainers is directly related to their performance as clinicians. It is worth identifying the underlying factors of that are related to, or even better, can predict underperformance and will help evolve a strategy to help those consultants who are underperforming

A Combination of Teacher-Led Assessment and Self-Assessment Drives the Learning Process in Online Master Degree in Transplantation

Background: Good performance in a summative assessment does not always equate to educational gain following acourse. An educational programme may focus on improving student’s performance on a particular test instrument.For example, practicing multiple choice questions may lead to mastery of the instrument itself rather than testing theknowledge and its application. We designed an assessment strategy that consistently valid and reliable that would fitwith the students with a range of 27 nationalities with a different institutional, cultural and educational background inthis totally online masters programme in transplantation.Methods: Based on the published evidence, we analyzed 2 main assessment domains: (a) self-assessment and (b)peer-assessment. We compared them with traditional teacher-led assessment considering the diversity of students.Conclusion: We conclude that traditional teacher-led assessment supplemented by self-assessment is a strong drivein the learning process in this on-line course, whilst peer-assessment is challenging and associated with many flawsgiving the diversity of our students. Peer-assessment may be unreliable and not valid due to the difference in theinstitutional background and variation in experience between the students.</jats:p

Welcome to SensoryX 2023

We are excited to welcome you to the third edition of the SensoryX workshop on multisensory experiences. Building on the success of the previous two workshops (also co-located with IMX) in New York and Aveiro, the current workshop examines different aspects of multisensory design - from authoring tools to the evaluation of multisensory experiences - with the aim of identifying the current challenges and opportunities of mulsemedia

Implementation of Critical Threshold Concept in Clinical Transplantation: A New Horizon in Distance Learning

While variations in medical practice are a norm and each patient poses a multitude of challenges, many clinicians are not comfortable in dealing with unexpected complex issues even though they may have enough knowledge as demonstrated by passing a number of tricky certifying (or exit) examinations. One reason for the lack of self-efficacy, even if being endowed with good knowledge, is that we are not good in learning from errors. A regular reflective practice offers superb learning opportunities when a clinician is “stuck in a mire”. Difficult clinical situations warrant a flexible and, at the same time, an evidence-based approach to ensure that crucial decision-making process is correct and efficient. Each clinical case offers a great opportunity to reinforce these “threshold concepts”, however, not everyone of us is “blessed” with these crucial not-so-difficult-to-acquire skills so necessary to be a life-long learner. The faculty of this course (a totally on-line MSc in Transplant Sciences) aims for unceasing engagement with students in order to facilitate them to negotiate through “stuck places” and “tricky bends” in their own work place. This course, not just meant for knowledge transfer, provides a platform that allows participants (the students and faculty) to learn from each other’s experience by using “e-blackboard”. The mainstay of this course are twofold: (a) Emphasis on achieving critical decision-making skills, (b) Regular feedback to allow reflective practice and, thereby, constantly learning from errors and reinforcing good practices. The aim of this article is to assess the performance of educators and how well the “ethos of critical threshold” has been accepted from the perspective of students. Methods: The critical thresholds of each chapter in 4 modules of this totally on-line course were defined to a razor-sharp precision. Learning objectives of learning activity were defined to achieve constructive alignment with critical threshold. We employed level 1, 2, 4 and 5 of Kirkpatrick pyramid, (a) for the evaluation of performance of educators of program, and (b) to evaluate the acceptance of this non-traditional format in clinical medicine education by postgraduate 80 students in 22 countries. Results: Students’ survey (Kirkpatrick level 1) was done only for module 1 of cohort 1 reported students’ satisfaction rate of 93%. Excluding a total of 12 drop-outs in 2 modules (n=10 in first cohort’s module 1, and n=2 in module 2), as many as 93% of students of first cohort passed module. Nine out of 60 registrants of module 1 in 2nd cohort took recess for one year requesting to join back as a part of 3rd cohort commencing one year later, all 51 who continued passed though 3 of them had to resit. All those who passed module 1 (both cohorts) and 2 (1st cohort) registered for their respective next module (return on investment Kirkpatrick level 5). Conclusion: For a successful model in distance learning in clinical transplantation it is imperative for the students to accomplish well defined “critical-decision making” skills. In order to learn critical thresholds, a regular feedback is integral to learning from reflective practice. This course equips the students to develop skills of negotiating “sticky mire”, as obvious from perceived high return of investment