Browsing by Author "Escalera, B."
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Item Embargo Learning clinical biochemistry diagnostic skills through reflection.(Universidad de Alicante, Instituto de Ciencias de la Educación (ICE), 2019, 2019-11-01) Pena-Fernandez, A.; Evans, M. D.; Young, Christopher N. J.; Escalera, B.; Angulo, S.; Pena, M. A.Future health professionals need to acquire analytic and diagnostic skills for prognosis and management of disease. However, future professionals need to be provided with the necessary competences to interpret and process the increasing generation of data produced by the exponential advances in biomedical knowledge and techniques. A novel pedagogic reflective strategy was implemented in the final year module “Clinical Biochemistry” shared in the BSc Biomedical Science (BMS) and BMedSci Medical Science (BMedSci) programmes at De Montfort University (UK) in 2016/17, to encourage students to use reflection to resolve three clinical biochemistry case studies of increasing difficulty distributed throughout the year, as reflection has been shown to be effective in facilitating continuous learning and gaining practical skills. Students voluntarily resolved each case study and were provided with comprehensive feedback and marks for different criteria, including ability to reflect and comment. Marks gained for each of the criteria were compared statistically between them and between last two academic years (2016/17 and 17/18); a significant increase in the performance of students as a result of participation in this project was seen. Despite the short duration of this intervention, the reflective pedagogy implemented was shown to facilitate the acquisition and development of critical thinking and reflection, relevant skills for any future healthcare professional. Finally, participants improved their communication and scientific writing skills.Item Embargo Learning global public health through international practice: role of #DMUglobal mass trips(Octaedro, 2019-11-01) Pena-Fernandez, A.; Escalera, B.; Pena, M. A.Global public health knowledge is critical to provide healthcare professionals with the necessary skills to respond to outbreaks of infection. To promote infectious disease prevention, detection and response awareness, fifty final year students from three different human health science programmes (BSc Biomedical Science; BMedSci Medical Science and BSc Audiology) at De Montfort University (DMU, UK) travelled to New York (USA) early in 2019with a novel programme to promote internationalisation named #DMUglobal. Students were requested to monitor in situ the presence of emerging zoonotic human parasites in animal faecal samples found in Central Park using a specific immunoassay card and identify potential interventions and decontamination techniques to protect the public. On return to DMU, students completed, in groups, a scientific poster with applicable public health interventions and recovery options. 87% of the students enjoyed the practical performed, and 78% producing and defending the poster, showing high levels of understanding. All participants considered that the skills gained will help with their studies and future careers. In conclusion, despite the need for more comprehensive studies to ascertain the degree of knowledge acquisition, the results collected suggest that internationalisation facilitates the learning of emerging diseases and global health. Moreover, students were able to acquire soft and transversal competences during this innovative experience such as mobility, critical thinking and research skills.Item Open Access Reflection as a tool to facilitate the acquisition of diagnostic skills in clinical biochemistry.(REDES-INNOVAESTIC 2019. Libro de actas. Alacant: Institut de Ciències de l’Educació (ICE) de la Universitat d’Alacant, 2019., 2019-05-30) Pena-Fernandez, A.; Evans, M. D.; Young, Christopher N. J.; Escalera, B.; Angulo, S.; Pena, M. A.Future health professionals need to acquire analytic and diagnostic skills for prognosis and management of disease. However, the exponential advances in biomedical knowledge are making available new techniques and increasing the generation of data that require professionals equipped with the appropriate skills to interpret and process this new information. This is especially evident in biochemistry in which a myriad of new biomarkers can be currently monitored in a clinical tissue sample but, in turn, will require that the health professional is undertaking continuous learning to understand their meaning and interpretation. Reflection has been shown to be effective in facilitating continuous learning and gaining practical skills. Our innovative teaching group at De Montfort University (DMU, UK) implemented a novel pedagogic reflective strategy in the module “Clinical Biochemistry” shared in the BSc Biomedical Science (BMS) and BMedSci Medical Science (BMedSci) programmes in 2016/17, to encourage these final year students to think critically and use reflection to resolve three clinical biochemistry case studies of increasing difficulty distributed throughout the year. Students voluntarily resolved each case study and were provided with comprehensive feedback and marks for three main criteria, which students used to answer the case study: a) ability to extract all the fundamental concepts; b) ability to synthesise information and clarity of expression; and c) ability to reflect and comment. Preliminary results were not reliable due to poor engagement with this voluntary work, only 23 out of 142 students completed the first two case studies. For the 2017/18 iteration of the project, we performed small modifications and restricted the completion of the three case studies to the first term to encourage participation (as these final students are required to complete a demanding laboratory based final project in the second term). A total of 48 students (38 BMS and 10 BMedSci) voluntarily completed the first case study, although there was a notable reduction in the number of students that attempted the last case study. Marks gained for each of the criteria were compared statistically between them and between both academic years the project ran, to determine the effects of participation. Data analysed for both academic years indicated a significant increase in the marks received for ability to synthesise information and clarity of expression (p=0.01) and ability to reflect (p<0.02). An ANOVA of repeated measures for all the marks collected in the first two case studies launched in 2017/18 would confirm our previous results showing a significant increase in the performance of students as a result of participation in this project. Seventeen participants from this second cohort also provided comprehensive feedback, indicating high levels of enjoyment and satisfaction (58.8% agreed, 42% strongly agreed) by participating in this voluntary experience. Additionally, 88.2% considered that their critical thinking had improved and 81.2% had learnt to reflect and resolve general and frequent pathologies using clinical biochemistry information. Moreover, students documented different benefits from their participation other than learning, e.g. 88% considered that the reflective project has helped them to prepare their exams and a similar percentage indicated a positive impact on their professional development. In conclusion, and despite its short duration, the reflective pedagogy implemented was shown to facilitate the acquisition and development of critical thinking and reflection, relevant skills for any future healthcare professional. In addition, this pedagogic intervention has improved communication and scientific writing in participants, which would have benefited the performance of these students in other relevant modules.Item Open Access Teaching and learning public health: A #DMUglobal perspective.(REDES-INNOVAESTIC 2019. Libro de actas. Alacant: Institut de Ciències de l’Educació (ICE) de la Universitat d’Alacant, 2019, 2019-05-29) Pena-Fernandez, A.; Escalera, B.; Pena, M. A.Recent pandemics such as the 2014-16 Ebola outbreak in West Africa and the increasing threat of bioterrorism have highlighted the relevance of teaching global public health in human health degree/training programmes, so future healthcare professionals are provided with the appropriate skills to respond to outbreaks of infection. To promote global public health action to strengthen infectious disease prevention, detection and response awareness, the Leicester School of Allied Health Sciences at De Montfort University (DMU, United Kingdom, UK) was funded as part of a #DMUglobal mass trip to visit New York city (NYC, United States) with fifty final year students from three different human health science programmes (BSc Biomedical Science; BMedSci Medical Science and BSc Audiology) from the 3rd to 8th January 2019 with three academic staff. These trips involve a short-term visit outside the UK to promote and facilitate the acquisition of different transversal competences and international mobility and are supported by the #DMUglobal department that also includes the Erasmus+ programme. Students were requested to monitor in situ the presence of emerging zoonotic human parasites (Cryptosporidium parvum and Giardia intestinalis) in animal faecal samples from urban parks across Manhattan using immunoassay cards to identify whether interventions to protect the public would be needed. On return to DMU, students completed, in groups, a scientific poster with their monitoring results and applicable public health interventions to prevent infections and presented them in an interactive session. Following this session, fifteen students voluntarily completed a validated feedback-questionnaire (with Likert-scale and open answer questions) on the overall experience, reporting high levels of engagement and satisfaction in all the different activities organised. Specifically, 87% enjoyed monitoring the presence of these emerging human parasites in animal faecal samples and 78% enjoyed producing and defending the poster. All participants considered that the information and skills gained will help with their studies (47% agreed, 53% strongly agreed) and future careers (60% agreed, 40% strongly agreed). Participants also documented the part of the trip that they found more interesting, for example: “testing for Giardia and Cryptosporidium, and that waiting period to see if the swab contained anything on the immunocard”; “learning a new technique for environmental monitoring and understanding how quick and easy it is to do”; or “the best part was the poster presentation as it brought everything together”. Moreover, the supervision of the students’ practical work in NYC and the evaluation of the scientific posters would indicate that the #DMUglobal mass trip was successful in providing students with some knowledge of how to design and perform environmental monitoring of zoonotic emerging pathogens and identify applicable public health interventions to minimise their infections. The production and defence of the poster demonstrated that most students were able to perform a literature review and demonstrated a good level of understanding of infectious disease detection and prevention. In conclusion, despite the need for more comprehensive studies to ascertain the degree of knowledge acquisition, the results collected suggest that internationalisation facilitates the learning of emerging diseases and global health (specifically related to the relevance that environmental monitoring of emerging human pathogens has to tailor public interventions). Moreover, students were able to acquire soft and transversal competences during this innovative experience such as mobility, critical thinking, research skills, communication and team work.Item Embargo Teaching interventions in a clinical degree programme to help address the UNAIDS HIV elimination targets.(Editorial Octaedro, 2020-10-27) Pena-Fernandez, A.; Escalera, B.; Pena, M. A.General awareness in chemoprophylactic preventive methods amongst undergraduate students enrolled in our two clinical science programmes at De Montfort University (DMU, Leicester, UK) was found to be very poor. To tackle this we delivered a highly dynamic workshop in our level 4 module of Basic Microbiology in 2019/20 (n=230), BSc Biomedical Science (BMS), aimed at facilitating student acquisition of the following skills/knowledge: a) correct use of sexual barriers and available HIV chemoprophylaxis methods; b) frequency of sexual checks and use of available vaccines according to sexual behaviour and sex life; and c) tailor evidence-based public health interventions to avoid people living with HIV (PLHIV) from developing AIDS. Qualitive and quantitative (validated feedback-questionnaire) methods were used to evaluate our teaching intervention. Ninety BMS students voluntarily provided comprehensive feedback. A large majority highlighted that they learnt how to establish public health interventions to reduce HIV transmission. The workshop seemed to facilitate acquisition of knowledge on the appropriate use of condoms/barriers, as students unveiled important errors and gaps in their knowledge of the use of barriers in a preliminary test in form of a quiz. In conclusion, the improved workshop would seem to be effective for promoting sexual and public health education, acquisition of knowledge of HIV chemoprophylaxis tools available and how to minimise opportunistic pathogen infections in PLHIV.