The problem with doing training courses in the ambulance service when you've come from being an A&E nurse is that it's really just a case of being told how to do stuff that I've already been doing. The entertainment (such as it is) comes from reading behind the lines of the course to see where our management are trying to steer us.
Yesterday's training day was about writing a good patient assessment – essential when you want people to start leaving patients at home.
All of this was done by the usual ambulance training method of 'death by powerpoint' – the teacher/facilitator/whatever the term is these days using the powerpoint presentation to jog their memory on what they are supposed to be talking about.
Luckily we had two excellent teachers yesterday, which made the day a lot more bearable. The good thing about LAS in service training is that most of the educators do treat us as adults.
The other problem is that to complete the course we need to write a reflective case study on a patient including how what we learnt on this training day has improved our practice.
One – How do I write about my improving practice when I already do all the things that were taught to us on this day.
Two – How boring must it be to write about an ambulance job?
As long as the instructor has experience to put behind his/her material it should be a bit more easier to handle….if you already know it be thankful he/she is not teaching it wrong. As far as paperwork…unfortunately a necessary evil 🙁
Hi,I work for a Medical Royal College and we recently had a meeting that considered reflection for continuing professional development for doctors. It was raised at that meeting that sometimes an activity is a consolidation of your knowledge and that it might, if you are experienced, simply confirm your practice rather than telling you something you didn't know and practice before hand. Therefore in that circumstance it would be perfectly acceptable to state this in your reflection and not seek change of change's sake. Something change would not be an improvement.
Well it might be worth a go 😉
Claire
Before this course, my crewmates and I would leave patients at home by using the ruse “I've just got to get something out of the ambulance” before making a speedy getaway. Unless they'd actually chopped their own legs off in which case we could get out at quite a leisurely saunter.But No More! The light has been seen, the brilliance has shone down from above, and now I realise that the Correct Path is to keep pulling out yet more paperwork until the patient is actually begging us to just go away and let them go to bed and be ill in peace.How close am I?
I find myself in this situation very often these days. It's become worse since all the 'cover-your-a*se' training was made 'mandatory' (whatever that really means). In order not to be sued, the hospitals put everyone, regardless of ability and experience, on the same I Spy Risk Management training days, wasting days of good treatment time just to ensure we all know not to play with matches.
I can understand where you are coming from about death by powerpoint. However, having briefly been on the other side of the projector, delivering a course for a couple of weeks, I can sympathise with trainers everywhere having to deliver the same materials over and over again – groundhog day personified.My boredom in going on a course these days is lightened somewhat by the knowledge that the trainer is probably even more bored than I am, so I try not to take it out on them.
Axy
When I was director of QA for my EMS service, I would also be responsible for coordinating continuing education for my medics. Like you, I know how less than exciting it can be to sit and listen to someone drone on while flipping through a PP presentation. (The docs were especially good at this. Who needs Ambien when you had them?)I tried a new tactic, based along the lines of what doctors do here, a practice known as a Morbidity and Mortality conference. (M&M conference.) When the docs do it, they generally tear apart their colleagues with case presentations of patients that have met less than favorable outcomes.
I did not want it to go quite that far, so I asked that any medic coming to a CME session submit a particularly challenging call that they had the previous month, research it, present it, and the class would critique the call. I would not allow people to rip apart their colleagues choices, but wanted to use this as a teaching tool.
It went over very well, and was far more lively than the usual fare, though we did have to sit through these as well, just not quite as often.
>How boring must it be to write about an ambulance job?Don't tell us, we have to read your dribble….
😉
Cheers
Blippie
Reflective practice – a pain in the a**e, fair enough have debriefs etc
That's a really good idea.(To be honest, I was just going to file the serial numbers off a blogpost and throw that at them…)
It's the same paperwork, just formatted a bit differently – the problem is that it doesn't reflect the…erm… interesting way in which my brain works.
The thing about me is that due to some of the places/conventions/talks I've been to, I can see how powerpoint presentations can be made really interesting.Unfortunately too many people just use the presentation as an aide memoir (and I've been guilty of this myself and have sworn to never do it again).
That's also a really good idea. I think I'll suggest it for when I go for my Officer interview…
“That's also a really good idea. I think I'll suggest it for when I go for my Officer interview…”No problem, just remember my 10% commission. 😉