“Doing this with my hands
versus watching a video or being told how to do this was the best!”
– A
participant at the Healers of Tomorrow Gathering, Corner Brook, NL, August 2015
This simple statement from
an aboriginal high school student actually offers a pretty profound insight
into medical education.
The student was one of the
participants at a week-long mini-med school held at MUN’s Grenfell Campus last
month. The idea behind the Gathering was this: instead of bringing outside
doctors into aboriginal communities for temporary placements – which is the
current setup, and which can lead to lack of long-term patient-doctor
relationships in remote communities– train local residents in medicine so they
can bring the skills back home, combine them with their knowledge of their own
traditional medicine, and practice in their own communities.
And so, thanks to the
Aboriginal Health Initiative, 12 students from across the province participated
in a week of activities and discussions designed to spark interest in health
care careers, like nursing, pharmacy and medicine.
The week included two days
of hands-on simulation activities, where participants learned – and then tried
out – medical techniques like intubation, suturing, and IV insertion on mannequins and inanimate
models.
While simulation is a
standard part of most medical education, it was especially important here. In
aboriginal culture, knowledge is often passed down by showing the next
generation how to do something, and then letting them do it – an idea kind of
like simulation. Lecture-based formats, the kind we’ve grown accustomed to in
our Western education system, don’t necessarily resonate.
So while the youth quoted
above might have simply been making a casual, enthusiastic statement, they were
actually on to something deeper: Sometimes, doing things with one’s hands
[rather than watching or being told how to do it] is “the best.” This cheerful statement unintentionally makes a
sound point: if you want to create a system that works, you have to start by
educating the system’s participants in a method that works for them.
Barry Trenchard, a Medical
Technologist at the Clinical Learning and Simulation Centre who ran the simulation
portion of the camp, described the students as “inquisitive, intrigued and
excited to participate and learn,” and watched confidence levels rise as the
students mastered activities by doing.
The camp will be run every
two years, with the simulation portion as a regular feature. Read more on this year’s version of
the Camp in this Western Star article.
