Manage the patient suffering marine
envenomation.
The how, what, when, where, why of a student’s
experience
(Special needs - mature age
student with low levels of knowledge and experience with technology)
The following is
written from a first person student perspective.
My role within the group
During my residential school for the above I was involved in
a number of OSCEs (practical scenarios) around managing the patient suffering
Marine Envenomation. These were for both
practice and assessment purposes. All
scenarios were conducted in a group of four with students who were able to pick
their own groups.
In addition to the four students each group had an
experienced Paramedic/tutor assigned to them.
Their role was to run the overall scenario and to assist us with
direction and feedback.
Within these scenarios (OSCEs) I had a number of roles
including:
·
Primary Officer
·
Reviewer giving feedback
·
Marker for my peers
OSCE
The OSCE component of the course consisted of a number of
role play exercises at the beach. A
joint exercise was held with Surf Life Savers and professional actors and
moulage (makeup) to ensure the simulations looked and felt as real as possible.
Refreshingly all scenarios were based on the professional
experiences of paramedics working with the program or the course coordinator,
also an experienced paramedic.
Tasks
During each of the above OSCEs I performed a different role
as designated by a predetermined roster rotation. This worked well overall as it provided every
person with a balance of performing the stressful primary officer role and the
other more relaxed roles. In the past
some course coordinators haven’t scheduled this resulting in some students not
participating as they should.
OSCE 1 – Marker.
Prior to the commencement of the OSCE the assessor provided
an I pad which had a form on it for marking my peers performance. As someone who distrusts technology and only
uses computers when I have to I disliked this immensely.
The instructor we had assigned to our group did provide a
brief on how to use it but this was done very quickly as each scenario was
scheduled into a rotation and time was of the essence. I didn’t really understand it and when I
asked if I could just use pen and paper I was told NO we need it done on the I
pad so it could be saved and uploaded to the ‘cloud’.
I had real trouble seeing the screen due to the bright
sunlight and kept accidently ticking the wrong boxes just by placing my fingers
in the wrong place. In the end one of
the younger members of our group helped me which I found quite embarrassing as
they referred to me as a ‘technological dinosaur’.
I believe if we are expected to be using this technology we
should be trained in how to use it.
There was an assumption everyone uses I pads all the time so we should
know how to do this. I found this the
most stressful component of the course.
OSCE 2 – Primary Officer.
Coming from a tropical area I was familiar with marine
envenomation and the treatment for it and I loved having the chance to put my
skills into practice. I found this OSCE
challenging as the actor playing the patient was screaming with pain initially
and it all felt very real.
Having the Surf Life Saver there as well provided us with
another set of hands but I found managing them along with my second officer very
taxing. The 20 minute time limit seemed
to go quickly but I managed to achieve most of the tasks I needed to.
As a Supervisor in my day job I’m comfortable with providing
direction to people and I used these skills during the OSCE. What was new was trying to employ these in a
time pressured emergency situation.
Overall whilst challenging I enjoyed the experience and
learned a lot from doing this role.
OSCE 3 – Reviewer.
As a Supervisor in my day job I’m comfortable with
commenting on the performance of others and giving constructive feedback.
As this was a subject I felt comfortable with I enjoyed just
being able to watch and TAKE NOTES WITH PEN AND PAPER before giving feedback to
my peers. I thought this process was
well managed by the Instructor assigned to our group and it felt like a very
supportive learning environment.
Part of my role should have been to video tape the scenarios
using an I pad but knowing my distaste for the device the Instructor undertook
this for me whilst I used pen and paper to record feedback. This was a small concession for him but one
which I highly appreciated.
Results
All passed this in-depth assessment and I found the marking
rubric to be easy to understand as it involved tasks which were completed or
not completed.
The Instructor assigned to our group also allowed the group
a lot of freedom to provide constructive feedback which I enjoyed. Within this course it felt like our opinions
mattered. The only time our instructor
intervened in the feedback process was to add something we hadn’t considered
and to moderate comments if they were becoming more personal than about the
learning experience.
Reflections
Learning reflections
This was a positive experience overall and very
realistic. I can see there was a huge
effort made to make these scenes as authentic as possible and holding the
residential school at the beach was a nice touch.
Having each group complete the OSCE three times (members in
different roles) did become a little monotonous and by the time the third
person went through they knew what to expect, when and I thought there wasn’t
much to be learnt by then. Two
repetitions would be good.
Actors and the Surf Lifesavers contributed to the realism
and I enjoyed having them as part of the scene.
Technology reflections
As someone who distrusts technology I felt completely out of
my depth with this and highly embarrassed by the way in which my interaction
with this component was done.
I can’t see any reason why I couldn’t have filled out a form
using a pen and paper and have someone look after the computer side later.
I also believe the course coordinator should seriously look
at whether this is appropriate technology to use as many people had trouble
viewing a screen outside.
The memory was also an issue with at least two I pads
becoming full and stopping taping during the
OSCE.
If the course coordinator is set on using the marking forms
on the I pads then we should be provided with training on how to do it WELL
AHEAD OF TIME and not on the day. This
could be done as a morning when first
arriving at the residential school.
Conclusion
Overall I felt this component of the residential school was
well organised and I learned a lot from repetitively performing OSCEs and
watching others do them as well. The
authenticity really showed through from location to involvement of Surf
Lifesaving and having actors perform the role of patient and I think it was a
comfortable learning environment.
However, I also believe technology got in the way of
learning at times and this needs to be addressed. I don’t think we needed the technology as
marking could be done using a pen and paper, I realise I’m in the minority here
but that is my view.
The OSCE format is great already but with a few minor
adjustments could be even better.
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