What do you guys think?

I found an article about using virtual reality (VR) as an education tool for nursing and medical students before they started their rotation in the operating room. The VR put the students in the position of the patient about to have surgery. The second part of the VR was a virtual tour of the OR where they where going to do clinicals.

This article got me thinking about how simulations can be used for so many things in so many ways. I’m now curious about VR as another option in healthcare education to further explore the affective domain, maybe even how we connect to each other in our job roles and see our connection to the healthcare system.

What is 360 video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EqsdVIjZSxw 

(You might need to use your UW account to access the link) https://go-gale-com.offcampus.lib.washington.edu/ps/retrieve.do?tabID=T002&resultListType=RESULT_LIST&searchResultsType=SingleTab&retrievalId=f6dd422f-0286-426c-8732-2fc14764c53e&hitCount=1&searchType=AdvancedSearchForm&currentPosition=1&docId=GALE%7CA676576937&docType=Report&sort=RELEVANCE&contentSegment=ZONE-MOD1&prodId=AONE&pageNum=1&contentSet=GALE%7CA676576937&searchId=R1&userGroupName=wash_main&inPS=true 

If I had infinite time and resources, I would want to include a variety of topics ranging from pediatric anatomy and physiology to age specific developmental care considerations. I would want to include everything in the realm of pediatric nursing but that would be unrealistic. The main educational components I would want to include are:

· Pediatric Mental Health- from school age to adolescents 

· How to best teach parents, patients of all ages, and caregivers 

· Caring for pediatric patients & their families 

· Physiology and development from birth to 18 years old

· Caring for children with developmental disabilities

· Pediatric Pain Assessment & Management 

· Most common pediatric conditions in each body system: for example, appendectomy under the GI system

· How to be a pediatric nurse in the in-patient setting: practical skills, how to approach patients, time management, prioritization of care/tasks and the day-to-day nursing care of kids. 

The structure of my ideal class would be in a flipped classroom design. I would provide students with preparation materials in advance of the course tailored to all different learning styles for them to review the content. For example, for our class day on pediatric mental health I would design a module that would include video lectures with audio recordings of the material for visual and auditory learners, textbook chapters for those who prefer reading, and visuals and images illustrating concepts for visual learners. I would assign students the pre-work which they would complete prior to the scheduled in person class day. I would administer a formative assessment, either a short answer prompt or a short quiz on key information I want them to know from the lecture content. Then based on the answer of the quiz or short answer activity I would spend the first part of class, going over the questions/content that the students struggled with the most. I would do this in a mini lecture format with a discussion/Q&A session for students. This would ensure that their questions can be answered, and content can be clarified before the class moves on to the application section of the class. During the rest of the class period, I would want to work with students on application of the content into nursing scenarios through active learning strategies such as case studies, group discussions, group presentations, individual presentations, and high or low fidelity simulations. The focus of in class time would be the application of content to real life clinical issues and problems that students will face in their future career. I would like to minimize in class lecturing as much as possible and bring application-based learning to the forefront in the class. In an ideal world I would eliminate MC question quizzes/exams (because I hate them) but considering the need to prepare them for NCLEX  I would include NCLEX style MC questions in quizzes and a few exams on application of the course content. I would include concept maps and varied writing assignments to allow students to practice critical thinking skills and solve real world problems. I want students to learn to think critically to support them to provide the best possible care they can for our vulnerable pediatric patient population. 

Why pediatrics? I love children and pediatric nursing. They are my passion. I enjoy caring for pediatric patients and their families. I want my students to have a more positive learning experience than I did in my pediatric nursing course during undergraduate education which left me questioning if it was the right field for me. My goal for the class is to prepare students to care for and interact with children in a meaningful way during their professional career as nurses. Although many of my students may not become pediatric nurses, I want them to be prepared to be comfortable interacting with children in their professional roles as nurses which could include a child being their patient in the ED or as a family member visiting a patient. I want to share my passion for pediatric nursing with the next generation of nurses to inspire some of them to be pediatric nurses like me. 

Side note: 

Another class idea I have for my ideal class would be a class for nurses regarding how to effectively teach patients. I have struggled with wanting to be a better educator for my patients and their families to ensure they can appropriately care for themselves or their children at home. I have noticed that many nurses do much of their teaching at the time of discharge and only give educational content in one of two ways either verbally or in written forms. I want to improve our patient education as bedside nurses to hopefully improve the retention of the education we provide and thus improve our patient’s overall health outcomes. 

Again, if I had infinite resources this class would be in a flipped classroom setting with didactic content done prior to class and then in class would focus on application based active learning activities. I would use case studies and clinical practice problems to focus on real world issues with teaching and learning in the clinical environment with patients. One issues I would also like to discuss is how to best teach patients/families who do not speak English or English is a second languages and how at the bedside we can best support them as learners. I would focus on educating nurses on specific teaching techniques that can be applied to teaching at the bedside. For example, emphasizing the use of the teach back method, assessing their learners preferred learning style and implanting the patient/family’s preferred learning style. 

Let me know which class you think would be more useful or which one you would want to take. I really like both…

~Morgan Sidles

The most pressing issue nursing programs face is to better prepare for practice. The core concepts in nursing are Clinical Judgment(CJ) and Critical Thinking (CT), which is a direct strategy for bridging the theory-practice gap and improving overall preparedness for practice. The following agenda is constantly lingering in my mind: 

Most nursing programs’ common unmet need does not have the resources to train all qualified nursing applicants effectively and reduce the number of available nurse educators and their time. Fatigue and shortage of nursing faculty are real.  

 This current strain on program capacity does not even reflect the thousands of qualified applicants turned away in the midst of a nursing shortage. The qualification of the faculty is in the line of challenges as well due to the high demands. 

Other common unmet needs are emerging technologies to consider for nursing programs.

My dream nursing education is to integrate innovative technologies such as virtual simulation/virtual reality (in the lab), video capture software for skills (student self-paced study and assignments), accessible EHR applications (prep for clinical), and e-Portfolio (digital portfolio where graduating nursing students articulate professional goals and demonstrate their skills and achievements. This is one of the current evaluation modalities for staff nurses in a healthcare setting). More importantly, it is critical that highly qualified nursing faculty need to receive proper training and continuing education through the supported program. 

The ideal class setting for active and productive student- learning is to consider the various elements listed in the link below from Wolters Kluwer who is a global provider of professional information, software solutions, and services for clinicians, accountants, lawyers, and tax, finance, audit, risk, compliance, and regulatory sectors.

Part of my decision to attend graduate school stemmed from recognizing how much I love to participate in in-depth discussions. The book Discussion as a Way of Teaching by Stephen Brookfield and Stephen Preskill, got me even more excited about what is possible through discussion. For me, leading a class like this would help me learn to use different techniques to guide classroom conversations, I would get to talk about one of my favorite topics, and by participants assigning the class podcasts, readings, movies, I would get exposed to more information. I hope myself and the students would also learn to have critical discussions which would increase our own self-awareness and more deeply appreciate diversity of opinion.

If I was able to teach a class like this on an ongoing basis, I think it could have great impact on the work environment. My dream is that a class like this would contribute to a positive work culture and increase collaboration and civility between different staff roles. 

Here is a link to one of my favorite recent episodes of Hidden Brain.

https://hiddenbrain.org/podcast/cultivating-your-purpose/

Audience: New graduate nurses 4 to 6 months into their nurse Residency

 

     At my workplace, we have a year-long pediatric nurse residency program, that consists of four-hour long seminars once a month. I would love to teach a seminar  4 to 6 months after their hire date to help their transition and mitigate the reality shock that new nurses tend to experience once they are off orientation. The goal of the seminar would be to help new graduate nurses move from Benner's competent stage of clinical competency to proficient. The seminar would focus on developing their critical thinking and deepening their understanding of the "big picture" of patient care. At current state, I think this is what our current nurse residency program lacks—an opportunity for new graduate nurses to build on their experiences and current knowledge to improve their critical thinking. 

 

   I would exclude a didactic for this seminar and focus more on building active learning activities to engage the nurses. For the activities, I would include a discussion on the most important clinical lessons they have learned. This will give the nurses an opportunity to reflect on their experiences and share what they have learned with their cohort, which consists of nurses from various units. The next activity would focus on case scenarios and discussions around the cognitive processes behind their decision-making. Case scenarios would include identifying patient safety errors since many medical errors are by new graduate nurses. The third learning activity would have the learners pick a topic or diagnosis they would like to know more about, and then have them look through the hospital's databases on that topic. They would teach the group what they learned in a flipped classroom format. Looking up policies can be difficult to do on shift because it can be time-consuming, especially for new nurses who are still trying how to navigate all the information that is available to them, so this will give them the opportunity to explore their resources. Giving the nurses an opportunity to choose the topics would make the content more meaningful and applicable to their practice. This seminar would also be a great precursor for their simulation seminar. 

 

When I was a new graduate nurse, the residency program did not exist at my hospital yet. I would have loved classes to help build my competence a few months in, after I have established a workflow, a grasp on basics, and experiences to reflect on.