Background
Method
Aim
Design
Setting and participants
Data collection
Data analysis
Dataset (quotations from interviewed NAs) | Initial code | Code | Sub-theme | Theme |
---|---|---|---|---|
‘There are new facilities, new practical elements, everything is new, the bed the patient is lying in is new, the anaesthesia equipment, all the boxes, most things are new. So it’s something that is really difficult, sure, but they catch on fairly quickly.’ (NA4) | Everything is new | Environment | Supervising in the operating room – a new context for students | Contributing to students’future professional roles by bridging the hospital and university cultures |
‘The student feels comfortable and safe, I think, that’s important. Because their backgrounds differ greatly, what they bring to the table…’ (NA9) | Students’ backgrounds differ greatly | Different needs | Adapting supervision based on students’ conditions | |
‘In our activities, we are always hard pressed for time, you’d like to have the time to be able to sit down and plan things.’ (NA11) | In our activities, we are always hard pressed for time | Time | Supervising despite the mismatch between ambition and reality | |
‘We do have interim assessments where one can review things so, yes, there one has an opportunity to see whether they’ve missed anything or if there’s something they need to work on more or need to take a look at. So, I feel, I find that we have had space to identify whether one has fallen behind or achieved the goals.’ (NA1) | Interim assessment offers an opportunity to see if there is anything that one needs to work on | Assessment | Guiding students through assessment | |
So, I think that the peer learning that we have now done a few times in … the latter part of the workplace training has been extremely successful. The students have been very pleased, and found it to be really fun.’ (NA10) | Peer learning towards the end was successful | Peer learning | Using collaborative learning to enhance student learning |
Ethical considerations
Results
Contributing to students’ future professional roles by bridging the hospital and university cultures
Supervising in the operating room – a new context for students
It is a special environment in which it takes time to get yourself oriented, so it is very clearly a challenge. And you take it a bit personally when you may have forgotten to tell them that ‘This is what applies here’. Yes, and if I haven’t told them, then the student can’t possibly know it, and you take it a bit personally, perhaps in the sense that ‘Oh heck, now the student has gotten a reprimand, which is a shame’. (NA 1)
Then I had presented … uh, so the whole team now knows that we had a student, and it was a very special patient. And then, when we were to take them in, suddenly the entire surgical team was switched out, and I didn’t know … (NA 3)
In purely concrete terms, comments such as ‘It’s taking too long’ may be made or, more subtly, in the form of a bit of moaning and groaning – and, yes, this is mainly in situations in the OR when one is anaesthetizing or wake the patient. (NA 1)
Adapting supervision based on students’ conditions
A person who has been in an ambulance is very familiar with hooking up and injecting patients, they don’t need to focus on that. But someone who comes from geriatric care may not have done so much of that, and they may need to take a day and keep on with that. (NA 11)
I believe that many still appreciate it, in that one first asks, ‘how do we administer this?’ and ‘why are we administering it?’ and ‘how much?’. And ‘roughly how does it work?’. And, so, you get to think about it, and then you can discuss it further. (NA 2)
Supervising despite the mismatch between ambition and reality
That’s where, as a supervisor, you try to stay ahead of things and plan and look around, try to get out of the OR and plan things on your lunch and coffee breaks, because it’s so important get things right in the OR …Then you always try to arrange things so that we can go on a coffee break or we can get out for a while, and the coffee breaks are always when we can reflect … (NA 3)
I want them to be prepared, in that they can’t be too soft, because this profession is tough at the start, and there can’t be too big of a gap between the supervisory period and when they enter their working lives, because then they will be in for a shock. (NA 5)
Sometimes, when you sense that … that the others may lack understanding, then I will come to the defence of my student … but, just like you want to advocate for the patient, so you also become the student’s advocate sometimes. I think that can be necessary. (NA 6)
Guiding students through assessment
I’ve been supervising for so many years, so I think that they are, they are very well informed … I feel that I’m very much at the bottom in terms of theory, very much so. But they really know their theory … (NA 4)
Using collaborative learning to enhance student learning
We have a whole lot of interns, we have resident anaesthesiologists … they are also very important, they have to get their … airways to have access to. So, it is really crowded getting access here to operations, advanced ambulance training students want to come here, they come from the helicopter and all of them want access to this airway … (NA 3)
I wish that we had student ORs there, where you could focus specifically on the simpler interventions, ambulatory surgery, and you would know that, in this OR, here, we will be supervising. And then there could be surgical nursing students in the OR at the same time, and then you’d get a greater … uh, then you’d get a better supervising situation. And then you’d know, then you’d have a limited number of patients, and I believe that this would offer more, in fact, it would be better for everyone. (NA 13)