Empowerment and Leadership Development in an Online Story-Based Learning Community

The problem was that there is a shortage of nurses who possess the leadership practices required to fill current and impending nursing leadership vacancies. Hospital-based nurse educators are in a prime position to foster a leadership mindset within nurses, and seek out potential nurse leaders; however, nurse educators first need to develop their own leadership practices and feel empowered to take on the role of mentoring future nurse leaders. The goal was to develop an online learning community where hospital-based nurse educators could develop their own nursing leadership practices through storytelling within an environment that included the elements of teaching presence, cognitive presence, and social presence. The online learning community would be considered an empowering environment, and nurse educators would improve their own feelings of empowerment. A wiki was used as the computer-user interface for the online learning community, and was designed based on the principles of human-computer interaction, learning theory, and instructional design. The wiki was separated into two learning communities, namely, the facilitated community and the self-organizing community. Some of the wiki pages were viewable by both communities, some were community specific, and other pages were private and viewable only to the nurse educator and the facilitator. The researcher/facilitator was the leader of the facilitated community, while self-organizing community members were responsible for leading their own community. The facilitator intervened in the self-organizing community when necessary, mostly to address technical issues. Through direct instruction via narrated presentations available to both communities, and leadership stories written and posted by the community members themselves, nurse educators learned about exemplary practices of leadership. Nurse educators in both communities significantly increased their own perceived leadership practices and perceived levels of empowerment. Educators in both learning communities identified that their communities included the elements of teaching, cognitive, and social presence. There were no differences between the communities, except on the teaching presence subscale of direct instruction, where the facilitated community was rated significantly higher. Given increases in empowerment levels, it was determined that both online learning communities could be considered empowering environments

Developing leadership practices in hospital-based nurse educators in an online learning community.

Hospital-based nurse educators are in a prime position to mentor future nurse leaders; however, they need to first develop their own leadership practices. The goal was to establish a learning community where hospital-based nurse educators could develop their own nursing leadership practices within an online environment that included teaching, cognitive, and social presence. Using a pretest/posttest-only nonexperimental design, 35 nurse educators from three Canadian provinces engaged in a 12-week online learning community via a wiki where they learned about exemplary leadership practices and then shared stories about their own leadership practices. Nurse educators significantly increased their own perceived leadership practices after participation in the online community, and teaching, cognitive, and social presence was determined to be present in the online community. It was concluded that leadership development can be enhanced in an online learning community using a structured curriculum, multimedia presentations, and the sharing and analysis of leadership stories. Educators who participated should now be better equipped to role model exemplary leadership practices and mentor our nurse leaders of the future

Professional Education and Training of Family Physicians at the Lithuanian University of Health Sciences

The changing approach to a physician’s profession brings about changes in the professional education and training of family physicians as well as in their continuous qualification improvement. For this reason, during the reformation of Lithuania’s primary healthcare system, not only alterations in family physicians’ activity, but also the changes in their education and training and the updating and improvement of their curriculum were seen as priority areas. The aim of the study was to reveal and compare resident physicians’ attitude to the peculiarities of the professional education and training of family physicians based on the traditional and problem-based learning systems at the Lithuanian University of Health Sciences (subsequently, LSMU). The study on the professional education and training of family physicians was conducted in 2005 and in 2015. The quantitative study was carried out via a written questionnaire survey. The studied population consisted of resident physicians who were studying family medicine at the LSMU. The analysis of the peculiarities of the professional education and training of family physicians showed that resident physicians acquired sufficient knowledge and skills in the fields of disease diagnostics and treatment, qualification improvement, disease prevention, and teamwork organization. Resident physicians had insufficient skills to adapt to new conditions of activity, and their studies did not develop creative thinking. The problem-based learning (PBL) system helps future family physicians to develop essential competences and to acquire knowledge and skills required for the career of a family physician