Clinical competencies in paramedic students

BACKGROUND: Training prehospital personnel in identifying patients with acute stroke is key to providing rapid treatment. This study aimed to investigate whether game-based digital simulation training is a feasible alternative to standard in-person simulation training. METHODS: Second-year paramedic bachelor students at Oslo Metropolitan University in Norway were invited to participate in a study to compare game-based digital simulation (intervention) to standard in-person training (control)...

BACKGROUND: Research has shown paramedics form rapid intuitive impressions on first, meeting a patient and these impressions subsequently affected their clinical reasoning. We report an experiment where theory-based interventions are developed with the goal of reducing reliance on intuitive reasoning by paramedics and paramedic students in simulated patients. METHOD: Australian paramedics (n = 213; 49% female) and paramedicine students (n = 83; 55% female) attending paramedic conferences completed a 2 × 2 fully between participants experiment...

Objective: Providing effective and correct care to patients requires clinical competence. One of the important components in clinical competence is spiritual intelligence the purpose of the study was to consider the correlation between clinical competence and spiritual intelligence in students who are children of victims of war of Hamadan University of Medical Sciences in 2019. Method : The cross-sectional study was carried out on 145 Martyrs' and War Veterans' Students of medical, nursing, midwifery, and paramedical schools...

BACKGROUND: The ultimate goal in educating medical students is to train skilled workforce who by obtaining the required knowledge of the discipline, personal and professional skills, and attitudes to enter the national health-care system. This study was conducted with the goal of designing a comprehensive clinical competency test of operating room technology student using the Delphi technique, and then, the clinical skills of the operating room technology students of the paramedical school were assessed using the CIPP evaluation model...

BACKGROUND: Simulation is a broad concept used as an education pedagogy for a wide range of disciplines. The use of simulation to educate paramedics is a frequently used but untested modality to teach psycho-motor skills, acquire new knowledge and gain competence in practice. This review identifies how simulation is currently being used for the education of paramedics, and establish the context for future application. METHODS: A scoping review of the literature was undertaken following the PRISMA systematic approach...

BACKGROUND: Evaluation of the competence and practical skills of nursing students, using the objective structured clinical examination (OSCE), is an integral part of the nursing education program. However, their performance could be negatively influenced by a significant level of stress and anxiety prior to the test. The present study aimed to evaluate the effect of an anxiety coping program on the OSCE performance level of first-year nursing students in Shiraz, Iran. METHODS: The present quasi-experimental study was conducted among 76 nursing students; control group (n = 35) and intervention group (n = 41)...

Background: There is a general perception that research is underdeveloped in rehabilitation professions. However, a PubMed search found that the growth in publications in the rehabilitation field was twice that of the general medical field. Despite this growth, another study focusing on Europe found that the proportion of articles reporting on clinical research in the rehabilitation field remained low (less than 40% of articles). This could be due to lack of teaching about research in rehabilitation schools or the late introduction of such courses...

Global rating scales are useful to assess clinical competence at a general level based on specific word dimensions. The aim of this study was to translate and culturally adapt the Paramedic Global Rating Scale, and to contribute validity evidence and instrument usefulness in training results and clinical competence assessments of students undergoing training to become ambulance nurses and paramedics at Swedish and Finnish universities. The study included translation, expert review and inter-rater reliability (IRR) tests...

INTRODUCTION: Bachelor's program in surgical technology is a major of medical science, in Iran. Learning and adapting to different skills and roles in the operation room environment is a daunting work. The complexity of this environment needs to bring together researchers in this field to work on different aspects. The aim of this qualitative study was comprehensively understanding of clinical teaching process in surgical technology. MATERIALS AND METHODS: The present study was conducted based on the qualitative research design of the grounded theory approach (Corbin and Strauss, 2008)...

OBJECTIVES: Although effective performance in clinical settings requires the integration between theory and practice, there is a gap between theoretical knowledge as taught in the classroom and what the students experience in clinical settings. This study aimed to elicit and explore the barriers of utilizing theoretical knowledge in clinical settings. METHODS: A qualitative study was adopted with a conventional content analysis approach. Fifteen nursing and paramedic's students, faculty members and experienced nursing staff participated in the study...

Pharmacology education has passed through various stages in the evolution sequence due to ever-changing type and repository of drugs as well as technological advancements in the educational processes. This article reviews the journey of evolution of pharmacology education. Pharmacology is relevant component of various curricula in medical, dental, and paramedical courses. A huge number of students learn pharmacology as a subject. Important milestones in evolutionary sequence included revisions and updates in learning objectives, teaching-learning material/methods and assessment in undergraduate (UG) and postgraduate (PG) levels...

Despite the need to develop a non-medical out-of-hours (OOHs) workforce to address increasing healthcare demands and to support a strained GP workforce, there is no consensus on the required training and clinical competencies needed for nurses and paramedics to be developed as safe OOH practitioners. This paper presents the development and evaluation of one programme delivered in 2017 to paramedics seeking to work in OOHs services. Details of the course delivery are outlined and the mixed-methods evaluation presented...

OBJECTIVES: To explore feedback processes of Western-based health professional student training curricula conducted in an Arab clinical teaching setting. METHODS: This qualitative study employed document analysis of in-training evaluation reports (ITERs) used by Canadian nursing, pharmacy, respiratory therapy, paramedic, dental hygiene, and pharmacy technician programs established in Qatar. Six experiential training program coordinators were interviewed between February and May 2016 to explore how national cultural differences are perceived to affect feedback processes between students and clinical supervisors...

BACKGROUND: Paramedic education has evolved in recent times from vocational post-employment to tertiary pre-employment supplemented by clinical placement. Simulation is advocated as a means of transferring learned skills to clinical practice. Sole reliance of simulation learning using mannequin-based models may not be sufficient to prepare students for variance in human anatomy. In 2012, we trialled the use of fresh frozen human cadavers to supplement undergraduate paramedic procedural skill training...

OBJECTIVES: We present our findings from a scoping review that sought to identify what is known about nursing and paramedic clinical supervisors' experiences of their supervision practices in rural settings. Our interest in these two groups is based on the central role that nurses and paramedics play in rural health care. DESIGN: Scoping reviews support identification of a broad range of literature, including all types of study designs. We adopted Arksey and O'Malley's five-stage approach: identifying the research question; identifying relevant studies; study selection; charting the data; and collating, summarising and reporting results...

AIM: A key competency for all health-care workers (HCWs) who care for children is the ability to respond to a child in respiratory or cardiorespiratory arrest. However, evidence suggests that medical and nursing staff may not have the knowledge and clinical skills to respond to these emergencies. The aim of this project was to create a standardised, evidence-based, paediatric life support course that would be available free to all HCWs in New South Wales (NSW), including NSW Ambulance...

BACKGROUND: Stylet use during endotracheal intubation (ETI) is variable across medical specialty and geographic location; however, few objective data exist regarding the impact of stylet use on ETI performance. OBJECTIVE: We evaluated the impact of stylet use on the time required to perform ETI in cases of simulated difficult airways in novice and experienced providers. METHODS: We performed a prospective, randomized observational study of experienced (attending anesthesiologists and emergency physicians) vs inexperienced airway providers (emergency medical technician, paramedic and medical students) comparing the use of stylet vs no stylet in random order using a simulated difficult airway...

OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study was to develop and critically appraise a global rating scale (GRS) for the assessment of individual paramedic clinical competence at the entry-to-practice level. METHODS: The development phase of this study involved task analysis by experts, contributions from a focus group, and a modified Delphi process using a national expert panel to establish evidence of content validity. The critical appraisal phase had two raters apply the GRS, developed in the first phase, to a series of sample performances from three groups: novice paramedic students (group 1), paramedic students at the entry-to-practice level (group 2), and experienced paramedics (group 3)...

BACKGROUND: The Ventriloscope® (Lecat's SimplySim, Tallmadge, OH) is a modified stethoscope used as a simulation training device for auscultation. OBJECTIVE: To test the effectiveness of the Ventriloscope as a training device in teaching heart and lung auscultatory findings to paramedic students. METHODS: A prospective, single-hospital study conducted in a paramedic-teaching program. The standard teaching group learned heart and lung sounds via audiocassette recordings and lecture, whereas the intervention group utilized the modified stethoscope in conjunction with patient volunteers...

BACKGROUND: Few studies have evaluated the impact of the upright position on the success of oral-tracheal intubation. Yet, for patients with airway difficulties (i.e, active intraoral bleeding or morbidly obese), the upright position may both benefit the patient and facilitate intubation. OBJECTIVES: We compared the success rates of subjects performing standard intubation to a modified version of the sitting face-to-face oral-tracheal intubation technique on a simulation model...