Continuing education

Melclin

Forum Deputy Chief
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I looking for pearls of wisdom and/or creative ideas about how to encourage continuing education in a small group of people/branch/station/small service.

I'm not talking about courses, certs, resume builders or alphabet soup adder-onerers. I'm not talking about QA/QI or formal CME at a large service.

I want to help encourage an enthusiastic culture of informal CME. Where people take a certain joy in learning; where there is a friendly air of competition that drives people to be better. Journal clubs (where a particular article is examined every week or month and the ideas within pulled apart, examined and argued about in order to learn from them) are a good example and that is an idea I've been looking at.

How do you stay current? Do you involve your colleagues? What works well for you? What ideas do you have for improving this sort of thing.
 

abckidsmom

Dances with Patients
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This is a really tough thing to break open in my department. I generally state the scientific rationale for why I do something when someone asks me what I'm doing or why, then try to get back to it later and read the article, or talk about the physiology.

Mostly, this place challenges me to think, and I just take it around with me. People don't usually care what I want to talk about. ;)
 
OP
OP
Melclin

Melclin

Forum Deputy Chief
1,796
4
0
This is a really tough thing to break open in my department. I generally state the scientific rationale for why I do something when someone asks me what I'm doing or why, then try to get back to it later and read the article, or talk about the physiology.

Mostly, this place challenges me to think, and I just take it around with me. People don't usually care what I want to talk about. ;)

Problem based learning is the key I think. The thing that gets people going the most is when specific case discussions come up that raise questions, so people tend to be more motivated to discuss, argue and to read in order to answer those questions. I'm just not sure about how to inspire that kind of discussion more often in more people.

I was thinking about an interesting case of the week/month where I distribute a case of my own (or willing volunteer's) that has been discussed and pulled apart, with added constructive critism from our clinical overseers (who are well liked and respected). I always learn so much from taking jobs to them and having them point out all my mistakes. I feel like other people could also learn from my mistakes. So instead of a case study that teaches by good example or is just an interesting presentation, it would be part cautionary tail, part pathophys discussion, part interesting case. I also like the idea of encouraging a culture of being open about mistakes or even just jobs that were done well but could have been better. I think people are often scared to let the clinical staff know about their mistakes in fear of being thought less of. Thats not at all how it works though, at least locally, and I think if we were all more honest and open to constructive criticism, we be better for it. What do you think of this idea? Do you (or any others reading) foresee problems with this kind of idea?

I've also considered:
- plain language reviews of evidence. (I worry that nobody will care or that people will resent someone as junior as me trying to teach senior paras).
- A journal/case review club (some combination of the idea of case studies above but in a smaller group of peers without the input of clinical supervisors (maybe less scary for people to get involved in, harder to organise on account of differing rosters).
- Some kind of directory of online resources of some description. I don't know how to get past people just shrugging their shoulders and picking up the newspaper. A weekly review of an online resource? Download educational videos and put them on the TV at work? Encourage podcast listening in some way?

Thoughts?

To an extent, this is not an academic issue. Its basically a marketing problem. How do you capture people's imagination in a way that is effective and efficient? How do u make it interesting enough to consider in the first place, brief enough to consume without losing interest, but detailed enough to teach a point?

I've also found this place to be very valuable. Not so much lately though to be honest. The quality of some of the discussion seems to have dropped a little.
 
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