Abstract
The safe and effective application of psychomotor skills in the clinical environment is a central pillar of the health professions. The current global coronavirus pandemic has significantly impacted health professions education (HPE) and has been of particular consequence for routine face-to-face (F2F) skill education for health professionals and clinical students worldwide. What is being experienced on an unprecedented scale parallels a problem familiar to regional, rural and remote health professionals and students: the learners are willing, and the educational expertise exists, but the two are separated by the tyranny of distance. This article considers how the problem of physical distance might be overcome, so that quality skill education might continue. Psychomotor skills are undeniably easier to teach and learn F2F, and training schedules in tertiary, in-service and accredited professional courses reflect this. This aspect of HPE is therefore at significant risk in the context of social distancing and physical isolation. Psychomotor skills are much more complex than the physical motor outputs alone might suggest, and an F2F skill session is only one way to build the complementary aspects of new skill performance. This article argues that educators and course designers can progress with psychomotor skill education from a physical distance. Videos can be used to either passively present content to learners or actively engage them. It is the design of the educational activity, rather than the resource medium itself, that enables active engagement. Furthermore, while many training schedules have been adapted to accommodate intensive F2F skill training once it is safe to do so, distributed practice and the need for reflection during the acquisition and development of new skills may challenge the pedagogical effectiveness of this approach. Skill development can be fostered in the absence of F2F teaching, and in the absence of a shared physical space. Embracing the creative licence to do so will improve equitable access to regional, rural and remote clinicians and students well beyond the resolution of the current pandemic.
Highlights
Neuroplastic and myoplastic development occurs over time with intentional, reflective and guided practice to build corporeal literacy: a bodily knowledge possessed by a health professional
The example in Box 1 presents one example of how skill training might continue during COVID-19, rather than come to a standstill, and can be adapted to tertiary, inservice and professionally accredited training
The current pandemic has prevented much F2F skills training, but it does not remove the need for practitioners to update their skills, reduce the need to access accredited training, nor waive the principles underpinning accreditation
Summary
Various models have described the continuum of development from novice to expert[5,6,7,8], and numerous teaching models have existed to guide educators in the process of teaching skills[1,9,10]. Neuroplastic and myoplastic development occurs over time with intentional, reflective and guided practice to build corporeal literacy: a bodily knowledge possessed by a health professional. This corporeal literacy informs insights such as, ‘this airway doesn’t feel right ...’, ‘I saw flashback, but I’m not sure about that cannula ...’, or ‘this bandage isn’t sitting properly ...’. Embracing creative licence to think differently about skill education might be all that is needed to rethink education online
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