Can video-assisted learning kill the radio star?

Samuel B. Bougher

BPharm, MSHP, ANZCAP-Res | Clinical Pharmacist - Rotational, Canberra Hospital | samuel.bougher@act.gov.au  

[Pharmacy GRIT article no: 20241402]

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As part of my residency at the Canberra Hospital I conducted a quality improvement project with my illustrious colleague Dr Karlee Johnston, who readers of Pharmacy GRIT can likely identify as a protagonist of hospital pharmacy. In her work with the Australian National University (ANU), Karlee had identified video-assisted debriefing as a novel and promising tool in the education of clinical skills. Video-assisted debriefing refers to the use of recorded video to watch back a skill being performed and reflecting on this to derive feedback. It goes without saying that taking medication histories is one of the pharmacist’s most keenly honed skills. As such, we have an obligation to share this skill with developing healthcare professionals to achieve medication safety standards outlined in the National Safety and Quality Health Service Standards. Thus, our project to investigate the appropriateness of implementing video-assisted debriefing to the teaching of medication history skills was born.

Our cohort was comprised of four third-year Australian National University medical students. This small cohort allowed for a meaningful comparison to a group of trainees within a pharmacy department, while also minimising the time burden. We took our cohort through two sessions, the first we directly observed a medication history-taking session giving feedback afterward. For the follow-up session we recorded the interaction (as opposed to observing) and gave feedback whilst reviewing the footage. We determined the appropriateness of implementing video-assisted debriefing through use of feedback forms after each session. We found that video-assisted debriefing yielded good learning which, whilst evidenced in the literature^1,2 hadn’t been used in this application. One of the main barriers we aimed to assess was the impact on psychological safety which comes with watching and deconstructing one’s own performance³ to ensure that any discomfort associated with this technique wasn’t overly impactful. Our participants demonstrated more comfort with video-assisted debriefing and was easier for them to derive learning goals. Overall, the implementation of video-assisted debriefing in our project was a success and encourages further implementation amongst early career and training health practitioners.

I was pleased with the research experience. I had prepared by pre-reading and had clear goals of what I wanted to know from the feedback and sticking to this achieved the clear picture our results formed. However, flexibility was required during the research project. Whilst initially, I had grand designs of 20 participants in reality, this was unfeasible and did little to lend applicability to aforementioned real cohorts. Alongside this lesson in realistic research, I gained a great deal of practice in the ability to micro-analyse our project from the lens of an ethics committee. When planning, I certainly didn’t foresee making a lucky dip of pseudonyms comprised of Australian fauna to protect our participant’s anonymity.