Teaching patient care to students: A blended learning approach in radiography education

Abstract

Understanding the complexity of the patient–practitioner interaction is a challenging area for radiography students early in their programmes. A small scale research project was undertaken to develop blended learning resources for the teaching of patient care to radiography students. Its purpose was to utilise experiences gathered from interviews with ex-patients to produce video clips of patient–practitioner interactions so that students might gain some insight into the reality of the clinical setting, thus enabling them to link theory with practice. A total of eight interviews with ex-patients were carried out and the transcripts used to generate scripts which were enacted and filmed by a professional acting company. Thematic analysis of the study data initiated the generation of scenarios, which formed the basis of the videos. Twelve scenes showing patient–practitioner interactions in various parts of a medical imaging department and four ‘talking heads’ clips were produced. These were loaded onto the university’s virtual learning environment and made available for viewing together with self-test and evaluation questionnaires. A pilot study was carried out; evaluation of the videos by second year student radiographers was positive. The main study was carried out using first year students with similarly positive findings and the videos are now publically available for teaching purposes. Further work in this promising area of e-learning could further utilise patients’ experiences, and using the same technology, might offer students of other professions the opportunity to gain vicarious experience prior to their first encounters with patients and the general public. In conclusion, research leading to the production of simulations of real-life patient–practitioner interactions delivered using blended learning is a useful pedagogical tool in the education of radiography students.