Education Horizon-Scanning Bulletin – July 2021

Compiled by John Gale, JET Library – Mid-Cheshire NHS Foundation Trust and edited by Michael Reid, Blackpool Teaching Hospitals

Contents Dental Education ...... 3 Bracing for action in the dentists’ classroom ...... 3 General Healthcare Education ...... 3 Are flipping and groups the way to happiness? ...... 3 Taking the fear out of public speaking ...... 3 Lecturers’ last words ...... 4 Training – how do you know what people need?...... 4 When gamification comes up with the goods ...... 4 Healthcare students, mental illness, and stigma ...... 5 Teaching students information literacy – when more means better ...... 5 Why mobile users aren’t second-class citizens ...... 5 Attention all Scrabble players – today’s word is “moulage” ...... 6 Desirable difficulty ...... 6 Interprofessional Education ...... 6 Training together, communicating better ...... 6 Cooperation? You’d better bee-lieve it ...... 6 Medical Education ...... 7 Getting to grips with the four dimensions of care...... 7 The doctor will see you – when she’s finished meditating ...... 7 Catching them young in Detroit ...... 8 Are medical students washing their hands of Covid? ...... 9 Do ophthalmologists dream of electronic assessment? ...... 9 How to make a happy radiology trainee ...... 9 Helping radiographers improve their image...... 10 Widening participation virtually...... 10 Student volunteers – who are they and what do they get out of it? ...... 10 Motivation, mental health and marks ...... 11 Nurse Education ...... 11 When FATCOD went to Italy ...... 11 Psychological safety and the new nurse ...... 11 Are dual preceptors the way forward? ...... 12 Incubator, simulator, educator...... 12 It’s not delirium, it’s just a multimedia presentation ...... 12 What do we know about emotional intelligence? ...... 13 How do midwifery students learn about ethics? ...... 13 The human aspects of going digital ...... 14

Dental Education Bracing for action in the dentists’ classroom Source: BMC Medical Education In a nutshell: Despite welcome efforts to encourage the acceptance of ethnic diversity and homosexuality, tolerance only goes so far. To those espousing the wrong views on Brexit and foxhunting, can be added those with misaligned teeth; sometime in the last thirty years or so it being decided that it was better for people’s mouths to be full of complicated ironmongery for years at a time, than to remain as God intended. In this study, Saritha Sivarajan from the University of Malaya in Kuala Lumpur, studied the effectiveness of a flipped classroom on teaching 40 third-year dental undergraduates wire-bending skills. Half the students were taught using live demonstrations, the other half using a flipped-classroom approach. The average wire-bending scores for the flipped classroom (in which students watched videos before attempting the tasks) were higher for making an Adams clasp and for making a Z- spring. The scores for both groups improved over time, “which may be attributed to formative assessment”. The students were satisfied with both methods of teaching, as I am swanning through airport security – wonky teeth and all – without setting the alarms off. You can read the whole of this article at https://bmcmededuc.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12909-021-02717-5

General Healthcare Education Are flipping and groups the way to happiness? Source: The Electronic Library In a nutshell: Much research has made the case for the flipped classroom over the years. It’s perhaps more of a moot point whether education is like reading (best done on one’s own) or eating (more fun with other people) though. In this study, Qiang Jian from Xuchang University in China, compared four different approaches: a flipped classroom; cooperative learning; a flipped classroom and cooperative learning; and traditional classroom teaching. The study showed significant effects of flipped classroom teaching on learning motivation and learning outcome. Cooperative learning improved learning motivation and learning outcome and the combination of the flipped classroom and cooperative learning also improved learning motivation and learning outcomes. All of which leaves this author, at least, glad of the many happy hours of solitary study afforded by a history degree, when socialising could be embarked upon with alcohol to take the edge off. You can read the abstract of this article at http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/EL-02-2019-0024

Taking the fear out of public speaking Source: Communication Education In a nutshell: My nightmares often feature arriving at a conference, chatting over coffee and being reminded that I’m delivering the keynote speech having completely forgotten about – and failed to prepare for – it. Public speaking gives lots of people the heebie-jeebies and in this study a team of researchers led by Briana Stewart from George Mason University in Virginia, studied 1,373 students enrolled in a “fundamentals of communication,” course. The study found that the students who reported medium-to-high levels of public-speaking anxiety before the course found that the communication course helped to reduce their levels of anxiety, whereas students with low levels of public-speaking anxiety did not report as much of a difference in their anxiety levels. Visits to the “communication centre,” had significant effects

3 on the goal-orientation types of mastery approach, performance approach, mastery avoidance, and performance avoidance. You can read the abstract of this article at https://doi.org/10.1080/03634523.2021.1906923

Lecturers’ last words Source: Communication Education In a nutshell: As they flickered in and out of the ether like a malfunctioning digital version of the Cheshire cat many lecturers passed on messages to their students during the throes of the pandemic. In this study, Renee Kaufmann from the University of Kentucky, led a team of researchers asking 297 students what messages they remembered receiving from their tutors at the start of the pandemic. Most recalled emotional-support messages most frequently; followed by motivation; solidarity/unifying; compliment/praise and tangible/informational support messages. The students described how these messages influenced them in a variety of ways, including effects on their motivation and performance, the instructor-student relationship, and their level of confidence and morale. You can read the abstract of this article at https://doi.org/10.1080/03634523.2021.1904144

Training – how do you know what people need? Source: BMC Medical Education In a nutshell: Depending on one’s point of view training-needs analyses (TNAs) are either a useful method of market research before one embarks on a training programme, or a handy way of deferring the evil hour when you have to stand in front of a group of students with the Powerpoint equivalent of the back of a fag packet. In this study, a team of researchers led by Adelais Markaki from the University of Birmingham in Alabama, reviewed studies on the use of the Hennessy-Hicks Training Needs Analysis questionnaire. The researchers found 33 articles which met their quality criteria. The evidence showed that “the TNA survey is widely used as a clinical practice and educational quality-improvement tool across continents. Translation, cultural adaptation, and psychometric testing within a variety of settings, populations and countries consistently reveals training gaps and outcomes of targeted continuous professional development. Furthermore, it facilitates prioritization and allocation of limited educational resources based on the identified training needs. The TNA tool effectively addresses the “know-do,” gap in global human resources for health by translating knowledge into action”. You can read the whole of this article at https://bmcmededuc.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12909-021-02748-y

When gamification comes up with the goods Source: Journal of Interactive Learning Research In a nutshell: Using games to teach people is not a new idea; parents have been using Snakes and Ladders to teach their children to count, take turns, and cope with disappointment for years now. But it has got more sophisticated and extended its reach beyond the kindergarten to higher education and the workplace. In this study, Klaudia Bovermann from the Open University in Germany and Theo Bastiaens from the equivalent institution in the Netherlands, studied how gamification and blended learning affected students. 97 undergraduates took part in the study. 46 did blended learning without gamification and 51 had gamification added to their studies with points been given out in class and leader-boards compiled. The gamification group showed a significant difference in intrinsic motivation and collaborative learning. The students appreciated “an active engagement through the

4 gamification concept, as it helped towards purposeful learning behaviour, fostered team spirit in the working groups and supported increased collegial and professional interaction”. You can read the abstract of this article at https://www.learntechlib.org/primary/p/184766/

Healthcare students, mental illness, and stigma Source: BMC Medical Education In a nutshell: From Eddie the Eagle to Eric the Eel history is full of people who embrace the adage that just because something is difficult it doesn’t mean it’s not worth trying. This certainly goes for reducing the stigma against people with a mental illness and in this study, Ana Masedo from the University of Malaga, led a team of researchers studying the levels of prejudice felt by nursing, medical, occupational therapy, and psychology students against the mentally ill. 927 students took part in the study which found that medical and nursing students had more negative attitudes than those studying psychology and occupational therapy. This held true across several stigma-related themes: recovery, dangerousness, comfortability [sic], disclosure, and discriminatory behaviour. You can read the whole of this article at https://bmcmededuc.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12909-021-02695-8

Teaching student’s information literacy – when more means better Source: Pennsylvania Libraries In a nutshell: If librarians had wanted to teach people – a profession, after all, with considerably more remuneration and social kudos – they’d have become teachers. That doesn’t stop librarians being required – like rabbits asked to introduce themselves to a pack of wolves – to teach information literacy to students, generating the inevitable response “just Google it, innit”. Trying to get to grips with this process was Maria R. Barefoot from Indiana University of Pennsylvania. She studied two groups of Research Writing students. A control group received one session of information-literacy instruction, whilst an intervention group received a written formative assessment and two sessions of information-literacy instruction. “The addition of a formative assessment and a second instruction session significantly increased motivation for conducting research in the intervention group”. You can read the abstract of this article at http://dx.doi.org/10.5195/palrap.2017.140

Why mobile users aren’t second-class citizens Source: International Journal of Educational Technology in Higher Education In a nutshell: Mobiles and PCs have different advantages and disadvantages as far as accessing the internet is concerned. PCs tend to have more-reliable connections and a larger screen, whereas mobiles can be taken anywhere, don’t rely on a cumbersome tangle of wires and can be more-easily used to arrange a takeaway/date/book purchase while you’re ostensibly working. In this study, Lian Wang from Southwest Petroleum University in Chengdu and Chun Liu from the University of Electronic Science and Technology of China (also Chengdu), investigated “the socioeconomic characteristics of mobile-reliant users, the association of … access preference and usage patterns, and whether a new type of digital divide has emerged.” Their study found that mobile-reliant users were not disadvantaged compared to non-mobile-reliant users “in terms of usage, with the development of advanced mobile technology and the wealth of mobile-friendly content available therein”. You can read the abstract of this article at https://educationaltechnologyjournal.springeropen.com/articles/10.1186/s41239-021-00267-w

Attention all Scrabble players – today’s word is “moulage” Source: BMC Medical Education In a nutshell: Those of us partial to the odd game of Scrabble are always on the lookout for a new word or two to add to our vocabulary. Did you know for instance that a thole is one of those metal rings on a boat that the oars fit into and that an aglet is a metal or plastic tube fitted to the end of one’s shoelaces to stop them fraying? Moulage is the art of applying mock injuries for the purpose of training emergency-response teams and other medical and military personnel. In this article, Daniel Bauer from the University of Bern and colleagues used photographs of skin complaints to produce an “analogue copy of the pathological finding”. This was then digitized by scanning and processing using graphics software with the final digital file being printed onto transfer paper. Using this technique, the researchers produced 10 different two-dimensional transfer tattoos including haematoma, Janeway lesions, and splinter nails. The researchers share their development process in this article which you can download at https://bmcmededuc.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12909-021-02763-z

Desirable difficulty Source: Journal of Applied Research in Memory and Cognition In a nutshell: Desirable difficulty sounds like it should be an oxymoron akin to placid Italian or technophile Herefordian. However, a desirable difficulty is a learning task that requires a considerable but desirable amount of effort, thereby improving long-term performance. Students don’t always buy into this intellectual equivalent of “no pain, no gain,” though and in this article, Bridgid Finn from Educational Testing Service in New Jersey, examines how motivation and cognition interact to influence students’ “self-regulatory learning behaviours.” In particular she discusses students can draw on their past achievements “as the basis for task- specific expectancies and values, which are reflected in the amount of effort and the strategies learners deploy on learning and problem-solving tasks”. You can read the abstract of this article at http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jarmac.2020.08.008

Interprofessional Education Training together, communicating better Source: BMC Medical Education In a nutshell: Complex conversations in medicine take a different form to one’s wife attempting to discuss allotment planting schedules while you’re trying to cook a chicken casserole; doctors might be spared nasty burning smells and misunderstandings about radishes, but they usually have rather more emotional complexity to contend with. In this study, Edward Stephens from Eastern Health in Box Hill, Australia, led a team of researchers investigating the effects of an interprofessional communication-skills workshop. The researchers found that after the workshop clinicians were able to incorporate the communication skills they had learned into their daily practice. “This was associated with an improvement in confidence of clinicians in having complex discussions, in addition to a reduction in the burden of having complex discussions. Participants responded positively to the interdisciplinary format, reporting benefits from the learning experience that translated into daily practice”. You can read the whole of this article at https://bmcmededuc.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12909-021-02785-7

Cooperation? You’d better bee-lieve it Source: Nurse Education in Practice

In a nutshell: The bee is one of the symbols of Manchester. Some see bees as a golden example of working together for the common good whilst others – this writer included – contemplate a beehive and see a grotesque, overcrowded abnegation of individual liberty reminiscent of the worst excesses of totalitarianism. You pay your money and you takes your choice, I suppose. Now that personal liberty and responsibility are seen as the preserve of hard-headed Thatcherites gaily running down orphans in their gold-plated Rolls Royce’s, cooperation and collaboration are very much the order of the day and in this study, Katherine A. Campbell from St Catherine University in Minnesota, led a team of researchers examining “interprofessional collaboration within a clinical-scholars’ programme”. The two major themes emerging from the interviews with the participants were Unifying the Team and Navigating Layers of Challenge, “encompassing concepts of teamwork and programmatic context that supported or disrupted interprofessional collaboration. This study affirms the importance of role clarity, connectedness, intentionality and continuity within clinical teams. Moreover, faculty identified barriers to teamwork based on workload, leadership turnover and constraining environmental forces”. You can read the abstract of this article at https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nepr.2021.103118

Medical Education Getting to grips with the four dimensions of care Source: BMC Medical Education In a nutshell: Most people know about the four dimensions of the universe: height, width, depth and time; given most people’s fashion choices at university it’s rather a bore that time is the only one that operates a one-way system. The four dimensions of care – as applied to people with a long-term or terminal illness – are physical, psychological, social and spiritual, and in this study, Jolien Pieter from Maastricht University in the Netherlands, led a team of researchers assessing a new project to teach medical students all about them. The students talked to a person suffering from either a long-term complaint or a terminal illness during their clinical placements and the researchers found that both the students, and their teachers, valued talking to an actual patient about the four dimensions of care. Reading and providing feedback about each other’s reports was considered valuable, especially when it came to the diversity of illnesses, the way that patients coped and communication techniques. The researchers concluded that “students pay a lot of attention to the relationship between the illness and the patient’s daily life, but the reflections often do not show insight in[to] the potential relationship between the four dimensions and decisions in patient care. You can read the whole of this article at https://bmcmededuc.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12909-021-02681-0

The doctor will see you – when she’s finished meditating Source: BMC Medical Education In a nutshell: Such is the popularity of mindfulness at the moment it’s a relief to be able to pick your way through to the cheese counter at Marks and Spencer without having to tiptoe round lots of people sitting cross-legged while they empty their minds. It does have all sorts of benefits though and in this study, Manuel Villarreal from the University of Warwick, led a team of researchers following 15 GP trainees as they completed a mindful practice course. Following the course there were statistically significant improvements in wellbeing, resilience, mindfulness, emotional exhaustion, disengagement, and stress. The participants described a number of benefits from the course and most said they would recommend it to colleagues.

The researchers concluded that “including mindful practice within general practice vocational training is feasible, and in this study, it benefited the psychological well-being of participants”. You can read the whole of this article at https://bmcmededuc.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12909-021-02747-z

Catching them young in Detroit Source: Journal of the National Medical Association In a nutshell: Detroit used to be known as the home of the American car industry and Motown, before becoming a byword for urban decay. No doubt in 20 years’ time it will be full of whatever the US equivalent of hipsters are, cycling around on penny farthings, cultivating luxuriant facial hair and drinking craft beer; some might say this is an improvement, if not on Motown, then certainly on vacant lots and drive-by shootings. In this study, Dena Ballouz from the University of Michigan Medical School led a team of researchers investigating the motivation of 216 Year Nine students from Cass Technical High School in Detroit enrolling in a “medical pipeline programme,” between the school and the University of Michigan. The students had to complete “multiple free response essays … [articulating] their reasons for applying and their goals for participation in the programme,” which the researchers then analysed. Four main themes emerged from the essays which were:

• Career aspiration • Exposure to the medical field • Breadth of mentorship • Longitudinal professional development

Somewhat to their disappointment, one feels, the researchers did not find that “health disparities in minority communities,” was a large factor in the students’ motivations; reminiscent perhaps of Tony Benn lecturing 1970s trade unionists on socialism and the brotherhood of man, only to find that they were more interested in fridge freezers and an extra week’s holiday in Spain. You can read the abstract of this article at http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jnma.2021.05.001

Helping junior doctors teach medical students. Is it all in the script? Source: BMC Medical Education In a nutshell: Medical students being taught by consultants can be a little like Posh Spice getting singing lessons from Ella Fitzgerald – the gap in wisdom and knowledge making the whole experience rather unsatisfactory on both sides. However, junior doctors often feel unprepared for teaching medical students suffering from a lack of confidence, “suboptimal teaching space,” and insufficient time. In this study, Nicholas R. Zessis from Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, led a team of researchers investigating the use of “teaching scripts of general paediatrics topics accessible via a smartphone application”. Before the implementation of the app 75% of the 44 junior doctors in the study spent less than five minutes per teaching session – after it was introduced 67% said they spent more than five minutes. Before the app 25% of junior doctors said they taught students once a day, compared to 55% after the app. There was a statistically significant correlation between app use and increased frequency of teaching and the students’ ranking of the teaching increased from an average of 2.4 out of six, to 3.4 out of six. You can read the whole of this article at https://bmcmededuc.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12909-021-02782-w

Are medical students washing their hands of Covid? Source: BMC Medical Education In a nutshell: It’s an ill wind that, proverbially at least, blows no one any good and the Covid pandemic has been a great boon for the makers of hand sanitizer, assuming, that is, that they can find any alcohol left after everyone has spent lockdown drowning their sorrows. In this study, a team of researchers led by Guwani Liyanage from the University of Sri Jayewardenepura in Sri Lanka, studied the knowledge of, attitudes to and practice in, handwashing of 225 final-year medical students. The students’ average score for knowledge was 3.35 out of six, although 31.6% scored below three. Most (78.9%) had positive attitudes, but only 36.4% reported “adequate,” hand-hygiene performance in all eight dimensions measured by the researchers. Only 55.6% remembered to wash their hands after checking people’s blood pressure, and only 66.2% carried a hand sanitizer in their pocket. Lack of time, skin irritation, and workload were seen as the main barriers to hand hygiene and frequent reminders, supervision, and interactive teaching were suggested as methods for improving compliance. You can read the whole of this article at https://bmcmededuc.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12909-021-02783-9

Do ophthalmologists dream of electronic assessment? Source: BMC Medical Education In a nutshell: “You can’t fatten a pig by weighing it,” is one of those sayings apocryphally attributed to farmers but nowadays more often used by people who spend more time complying with the arcane and arbitrary demands of assessors than they do getting on with their primary business. Monitoring the scales as far as 24 ophthalmology junior doctors were concerned was a team of researchers led by Hamidreza Hasani from the University of Medical Sciences in Iran. The researchers compared sundry different methods of assessing the junior doctors – attendance, logbook, scholarship and research skills, journal-club, outpatient- department participation, multiple-choice questions, objective structured clinical examinations (OSCEs), and professionalism/360-degree appraisal – with an online patient-management problem, and a modified “electronic,” OSCE. The researchers concluded that electronic patient-management problems “can be used alongside all conventional tools, and overall, e- assessment methods could replace currently used conventional methods. Combined electronic PMP and me-OSCE can be used as a replacement for currently used gold-standard assessment methods, including 360-degree assessment”. You can read the whole of this article at https://bmcmededuc.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12909-021-02759-9

How to make a happy radiology trainee Source: Clinical Imaging In a nutshell: One could argue that attempts to treat NHS-workers’ psychological problems on an individual basis is a bit like calling out a vet to treat a duck, then throwing it back into a pond full of battery acid, abandoned bicycles and plastic bags. In this article, Sean D. Raj from Baylor University Medical Centre in Texas led a team of researchers arguing for a different approach, suggesting several changes to training programmes to minimise burnout and promote junior doctors’ wellness. They argue “creating a culture of support, promoting a positive work environment, building a cohesive team, and encouraging wellness both inside and outside the workplace stands to create engaged, happy, and motivated trainees who will hopefully [sic] continue to promote those strategies as they advance their careers”. You can read the abstract of this article at http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.clinimag.2020.12.019

Helping radiographers improve their image Source: Radiography In a nutshell: Those of us struggling to produce a non-blurry photograph of our driving licence as we attempt to acquire a “Covid pass,” for our summer holidays can only doff our caps to radiographers as they attempt to capture images of the inside of the human body for the purposes of medical diagnosis. There’s always room for improvement though and in this study, T. Santner from Diagnosezentrum Belmont in Switzerland led a team of researchers studying the effectiveness of intensive training of already-experienced radiographers – “including the embedment [sic] of evaluation tools and building a new routine workflow”. The researchers found that the training led to a “significant improvement in the image quality of mammograms and an increase in motivation and professional wellbeing of the radiographers”. You can read the abstract of this article at https://doi.org/10.1016/j.radi.2021.05.006

Widening participation virtually Source: BMC Medical Education In a nutshell: Getting into medical school – a fraught business at the best of times – became significantly more cumbersome over the course of the pandemic. For those universities intent on whittling out potential serial killers via a face-to-face interview, rather than relying on who managed to buy the best personal statement off the internet, the process had to be done virtually. At the same time more people applied to study medicine. But what effect did these developments have on students from less-well-off backgrounds? In this study, Emily R. Bligh from Sheffield University Medical School led a team of researchers attempting to find out by surveying schoolchildren attending Sheffield Neuroscience Society International Virtual Conference in February 2021. 76.7% of the students had had work experience cancelled due to Covid-19, and 36.7% had taken part in virtual work experience. “Observe GP,” and “Medic Mentor,” were each specified as virtual opportunities in 20% of the answers. After the conference the schoolchildren felt significantly more confident in applying to medical school and were more prepared to give a presentation. You can read the whole of this article at https://bmcmededuc.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12909-021-02770-0

Student volunteers – who are they and what do they get out of it? Source: BMC Medical Education In a nutshell: The popular image of the American medical system is of wild dogs gnawing at the amputation stumps of the poor, while the rich drive by in limousines on their way to their ninth MRI scan trying to track down the problem with their troublesome little toe. While the US welfare system can be threadbare and inadequate human kindness exists there too and many medical students run free clinics for impoverished people. In this study, a team of researchers, led by Fadi W. Adel from Mayo Clinic in Minnesota surveyed medical students about their participation in the Long School of Medicine’s Student-Run Free Clinics programme. While most of the volunteers (62%) were women and from “non-traditional,” backgrounds (67%) the difference was not statistically significant and there were no statistically significant differences in academic performance between volunteers and non-volunteers. However, the volunteers agreed that taking part in the free clinics emphasised aspects of medicine that were either not represented at all or underemphasised in the formal medical-school curriculum. You can read the whole of this article at https://bmcmededuc.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12909-021-02793-7

Motivation, mental health and marks Source: International Quarterly of Community Health Education In a nutshell: Rather like the Belgians and the Poles the Kurds are one of those unfortunate peoples, perfectly satisfactory in all other aspects, who find themselves, from time to time, in the wrong part of the world as far as other countries are concerned. Despite being persecuted and oppressed by Turks and Iraqis present-day Kurds have somehow managed to set up a university, train doctors within it, and research how the students therein cope with their studies. In this article, Parinaz Mahdavi from the Kurdistan University of Medical Sciences led a team of researchers investigating the links between achievement motivation, mental health, and academic success in a sample of 430 medical students. The researchers found that mental health was significantly correlated with achievement motivation, but had no correlation with educational success, although there was a significant relationship between achievement motivation and academic achievement. You can read the abstract of this article at http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0272684X211025932

Nurse Education When FATCOD went to Italy Source: Nurse Education Today In a nutshell: Mention FATCOD and Italy and one’s mind turns to flaky white fish, in a rich tomato sauce with garlic and capers, all washed down with white wine and followed by a good dollop of gelato. In nurse-education terms, however, FATCOD stands for the Frommelt Attitudes Towards Care of the Dying questionnaire and in this study a team of researchers led by Chiara Mastroianni from the Antea Foundation Palliative Care Centre in Rome, used it to explore 1,193 Italian nursing students’ attitudes towards caring for dying patients. The researchers found that Italian nursing students seemed to have more-positive attitudes towards caring for dying patients than nurses in most other countries. They believed that caring for a dying patient was a formative, useful experience, although they did not feel adequately prepared in practice. Higher (i.e., better) scores on the FATCOD scale were associated with training in palliative care and having previously worked with dying patients. The students manifested more negative attitudes when they perceived patients losing hope of recovering, and patient’s family members interfering with health professionals’ work. Uncertainties emerged around knowledge of opioid drugs, decision-making, concepts of death and dying, management of mourning, and relational aspects of patient care. You can read the abstract of this article at https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nedt.2021.104991

Psychological safety and the new nurse Source: Journal of Nursing Management In a nutshell: Many people find that if they ask too many questions about how to do things, they get told off for bothering people every five minutes and if they soldier on and tackle it in the way they deem most appropriate they get told that they’ve made an almighty pig’s ear of things and admonished “if you didn’t know what you were doing, why didn’t you just ask”? Having a high level of psychological safety should mean that neither of these scenarios arise in this study, Bret Lyman from Brigham Young University in Utah led a team of researchers who studied newly graduated nurses’ experience of it. The researchers interviewed 13 new nurses and found that four themes emerged from their interviews with them:

• Building credibility

• Making personal connections • Feeling supported • Seeking safety

You can read the abstract of this article at http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/jonm.13006

Are dual preceptors the way forward? Source: Nurse Education in Practice In a nutshell: Universities are, in some senses, a sealed system. Ignorance, incompetence and wandering minds aside nothing supervenes in the transmission of knowledge between teacher and pupil. Once out on the wards it is, of course, a very different matter for nursing students with patients, paperwork and pestilence all putting a spanner in the works of the educational machinery. In this study a team of researchers led by Anne-Kari Johannessen from Oslo Metropolitan University, examined the effect of dual preceptors; nurses who worked for both the hospital and in the nursing faculty. 261 second-year nursing students took part in the study which found that “the dual preceptor team on top of one-to-one supervision did not interfere negatively with the clinical learning environment”. However, having a dual preceptor did not make up for having a poor relationship with a clinical preceptor and the association between a “strained relationship,” with one’s clinical preceptor and a poor rating for the clinical learning-environment as a whole still remained. You can read the abstract of this article at https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nepr.2021.103119

Incubator, simulator, educator Source: Nurse Education in Practice In a nutshell: Tiny, delicate, somebody’s pride and joy, hooked up to an array of pulsating machinery and alarms – it’s hardly surprising that nursing students are a little apprehensive when faced with looking after premature babies. In an attempt to make the process rather less nerve-wracking a team of researchers led by Zohour Ibrahim Rashwan from Alexandria University in Egypt, studied the effectiveness of a “scenario-based clinical simulation [SBCS]”. 60 students took part in the study. After listening to a lecture and watching a demonstration of nursing procedures half of them attended an interactive SBCS session, which focused on the holistic care of premature babies. The researchers found that all the participants who took part in the SBCS session had “good,” skills afterwards, compared to only 20% of those in the control group. 43.3% of the students in the control group experienced severe anxiety, compared to only 6.7% of those who attended the SBCS session. You can read the abstract of this article at https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nepr.2021.103121

It’s not delirium, it’s just a multimedia presentation Source: Nurse Education Today In a nutshell: It’s easy to lose touch with reality in a hospital. Quite apart from the effects of any illness there’s not always natural light, one’s usual rhythms of work, social life and putting the bins out are disrupted, and one is liable to be interrupted at all hours of the day and night to be given drugs or have needles stuck into sundry parts of one’s anatomy. One might have thought that the last thing patients needed would be to wake up and find a nursing student at the end of the bed playing the pan pipes, mounting a light show and engaging in interpretive dance but in this study, a team of researchers led by Kendra L. Rieger from Trinity Western University in Canada studied “an innovative assignment in which students created an arts-

12 based multimedia knowledge translation presentation to communicate systematic-review findings to patients”. Most students (68%) were satisfied with the assignment and 77% said they had learned from it, with 75% saying it would have benefits for their future practice. Age, enjoyment of and experience with the arts, type of motivation, and valuing evidence-informed practice were significant predictors of getting more out of the assignment. “Students reported experiencing relational and engaged learning, translating research findings creatively and clearly, understanding complex research concepts through experiential learning, and having frustrations and pragmatic concerns”. What the patients made of it all is anyone’s guess – perhaps they chalked it all up to delirium. You can read the abstract of this article at https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nedt.2021.105030

What do we know about emotional intelligence? Source: Nurse Education in Practice In a nutshell: Members of Mensa might be adept at spotting the odd one out in a series of dodecahedrons or deciding the next item in the list after kumquat, armadillo, marzipan, stalactite and bidet but the fact that they enjoy wasting their time on this kind of guff and enjoy telling everyone how good they are at it might suggest a certain lack of emotional intelligence, which, as it happens, is a rather-more important quality for success in life. In this article, a team of researchers led by Manon Dugué from Université Rouen Normandie reviewed the literature on emotional intelligence and nursing students. They found that it had many benefits and that several training programmes aimed at developing it had been shown to be effective. You can read the abstract of this article at https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nepr.2021.103124

How do midwifery students learn about ethics? Source: Nurse Education Today In a nutshell: For trainee nurses and midwives ethics is a bit like driving – easy to practise on wide, quiet, suburban avenues; rather harder on narrow city streets and multi-lane roundabouts. It’s taught in the classroom, but it’s unclear how students pick it up when they get out onto the wards. Attempting to unravel this problem was a team of researchers led by Michele Megregian from Oregon Health & Science University who interviewed 39 students from three graduate midwifery programmes. Three themes emerged from the interviews:

• Current experience and identified needs • The preceptor dilemma o The critical role of modelling ethics o Powerlessness within interprofessional conflicts • Complicated relationships: advocacy, autonomy, and choice

The students relied primarily upon clinical preceptors rather than classroom discussion as a significant source of learning ethics content and ethical behaviour. The students called for explicit identification of ethics learning when it occurs, as well as increased opportunities for reflection and integration of their experiences. You can read the abstract of this article at https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nedt.2021.105035

The human aspects of going digital Source: Nurse Education in Practice In a nutshell: Such is the speed of the onward march of all things digital one would not be surprised to wake up to find a barcode on one’s forehead and a chip inserted into a superfluous piece of one’s anatomy aimed at providing a system upgrade to the over 50s. But what do the people – specifically nursing students – on the end of all this technology make of it? In this study, a team of researchers led by Torbjørg Traeland Meum from the Department of Health and Nursing Science in Norway, interviewed 10 students and teachers from a first- year nursing course about their use of a new digital platform called Canvas. Three themes emerged from the researchers’ interviews:

• Pedagogical methodology affects learning and social fellowship • Need for varied, high-quality forms of learning • Need for structure and predictability

The researchers concluded that their study “emphasised the importance of digital competence involving professional knowledge and skills to facilitate the educational use of digital technologies”. You can read the abstract of this article at https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nepr.2021.103136