Using IT to assist in teaching with social distancing

​Using IT to assist in teaching with social distancing
Dr Christine Clark, Workforce Transformation Educator 

​Advanced Life Support Courses (ALS) are part of the lives of most clinicians. It is one of the ways we learn and practice the skills required to support deteriorating patients and those in cardiac arrest. The majority of the teaching is scenario based in small groups. This of course has been a challenge as we start to return to “normal”. The requirement for our foundation doctors to have the qualification still stands and we have had to cancel two courses during the pandemic.

​New guidance from the Resuscitation Council has allowed the ratio of faculty to candidates to change from 2 faculty members for a group of 6 to 1 faculty member per group of 4. They have also allowed the course Medical Director to be present via video conference.
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In order to make sure all of the Foundation Doctors from the cancelled courses were able to attend the training we have put on 3 ALS in May and June with another one to come later this week. 

Stuart Warburton and Jenna Kenny from the CAST team put a huge amount of work in setting up the course for two groups of 4 ensuring that social distancing could be managed as much as possible by setting up two rooms on the former ward 6. Candidates were given gloves and masks and I took on the role of Medical Director via Teams. Stuart and Jenna did the hard work of running the face to face teaching.

We had a couple of hiccups, but nothing we couldn’t deal with and there were definite advantages to being there in a virtual capacity:

• I could watch both rooms at once ( but I found I could only listen to one)
• I was available for advice from either room whenever required
• I could listen in and comment as part of the faculty at any time
• I was present at all tests and was able to be part of the decision making
• I was able to give feedback on teaching to the faculty members

It’s not all plain sailing though, a twelve hour Teams course was unexpectedly tiring, and I would advise anyone taking on the role to make sure that you do look after yourself by moving about regularly and making sure you keep hydrated. This was made up for by the fact my commute was less than 30 seconds at the end of a long day.

On the courses we have run so far we have had an excellent pass rate, and despite my initial reservations I feel that this is the future.

A huge thank you is due to Stuart and Jenna for the work they have put in. The teaching is usually split between 2 faculty members per group, and they have taught every session.

Picture above. ELHT Advanced Life Support Faculty, from L to R Stuart Warburton, Chris Clark ( on screen) and Jenna Kenny

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