Student education
Student education
Feature
Communication Star ( Moran , Lee and Killett , 2019 )
clinicians indicated that they were inadequately trained in this arena .
Poor communication is a factor in around a third of NHS hospital complaints ( Ali 2017 ) and effective communication has been consistently linked with better patient satisfaction ( Fortin 2002 ).
Reviewing communication skills
During a review of the BSc Occupational Therapy curriculum at the UEA , we reflected that we did not have a standard by which we assessed communication skills explicitly . We were also receiving feedback from educators about the quality of student communication skills on placements .
Placement educators were indicating that increasing numbers of first year students appeared to be struggling with basic interpersonal communication skills , such as how to start / finish conversations appropriately , how to active listen and demonstrate empathy and how to ask open questions .
There could be many reasons for these difficulties – we postulated that individuals are increasingly reliant on digital communication as the preferable medium for social engagement , and that COVID-19 would have influenced this , leading to increased digital communication and less face-to-face contact , perhaps exacerbating these issues for recent cohorts .
We considered the context for students with Vygotsky ’ s ( 1978 ) theory of learning in mind . We reflected that students may be attending placement before they felt confident in communicating effectively , thus pushing them outside their Zone of Proximal Development ( ZPD ), and therefore causing anxiety and withdrawal .
We wanted to offer scaffolding for students – a chance to practise their communication skills in a supportive educational setting with peers and educators , before going on placement . We also wanted to offer an informal assessment process , a chance to practice with more experienced others and service users .
Addressing the issues
We addressed the issues we faced in the spirt of the OT Process ( Creek 2003 ).
June 2023 OTnews 51