RESEARCH ROUNDUP – June 2017

This month’s Research Roundup looks at articles on cultural safety, feedback-seeking, teaching communication skills, social media and a piece on whether or not the millennial GPs are shying away from full-time work!

Plus the BEST social media policy I’ve ever seen!

Read on!

 Students’ motivation toward feedback-seeking in the clinical workplace

Are your registrars just shy? Or are they not motivated to seek feedback?

This paper by de Jong et al looks at self-determination theory to explore the reasons why learners seek feedback (or not!).

They found that high performing students are higher self-determined than low performing students and that this leads to greater persistence, more positive self-perception and better quality engagements.

Low performing students seek feedback because it meets external demands (such as assessment requirements) and leads to rewards. And why? Because high-performing students experience higher benefits in seeking feedback than low performing students. They learn from it.

Mystery solved!

Read all about it here: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/0142159X.2017.1324948

Embedding cultural safety in Australia’s main health care standards

In an article from this month’s MJA (coinciding with NAIDOC week) that is devoted to Indigenous health, Martin Laverty, Dennis McDermott and Tom Calma claim that the existing health safety and quality standards are insufficient to ensure culturally safe care for Indigenous patients.

They call for the embedding of cultural safety into professional standards as well as accreditation processes.

Read this special edition of the MJA here:

https://www.mja.com.au/journal/2017/207/1/embedding-cultural-safety-australias-main-health-care-standards

Are millennial GPs shunning full time work?

Apparently the CEO managing the organisation tasked with training the NHS’s workforce put it out there that millennial GPs (born between the late 1980’s and the early 2000’s) were unwilling to work full time!!

The author of this piece puts it all down to changes in the way workforce data were collected from one year to the next and claims that roughly the same proportion of the workforce worked full time in 2015 and 2016.

This article talks about GPs having a ‘portfolio career’, where their reduced time in face-to-face patient hours is taken up with other roles including clinical commissioning groups (read PHN for the Australian context), management tasks, other clinical work (e.g. pain clinics our out-of-hours work) and roles in ….medical education and academia!

So here’s to all you GPs out there with fulfilling portfolio careers!

Read all about it here:

http://www.bmj.com/content/357/bmj.j3059

12 tips for just-in-time teaching of communication skills for difficult conversations in the clinical setting

This paper by Hinkle et al tackles the thorny old issue of breaking bad news. So here are the 12 tips:

1. Recognize that communication skills can be taught and developed in the clinical setting
2. Assess your learner’s level of skill and comfort with communication
3. Assess your learner’s understanding of the clinical situation
4. Align the learner’s educational needs and assigned role in the conversation
5. Review the meeting agenda with your learner
6. Discuss individualized, skills-based learning goals
7. Review communication skills relevant to the learner’s goal
8. Set your learner up for success by setting the stage for the encounter with the patient and family
9. Be an active observer
10. Try not to interrupt but be prepared to step in if necessary
11. Debrief with your learner as soon as possible after the encounter
12. Help your learner develop an action plan to further improve skills

Read all about it here:

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/0142159X.2017.1333587

A day in the life: social media for clinical practice and clinical education

A great little paper by Victoria Brazil and Casey Parker that refers to social media-based education as individualized, democratized medical education. Viva!

Some really useful hints and tips including one for all of us to remember (courtesy of the Mayo Clinic’s 12-word social media policy):

“don’t lie, don’t pry, don’t cheat, can’t delete, don’t steal, don’t reveal”

https://socialmedia.mayoclinic.org/discussion/a-twelve-word-social-media-policy

Access the article here:

https://www.mja.com.au/journal/2017/206/11/day-life-social-media-clinical-practice-and-medical-education