In the new "Skills Lab" of Caritas, trainees rehearse situations from everyday work.
Unterhaching
- practice makes perfect, they say.
But what if practicing in practice is not as easy as it is in outpatient care, because every mistake there would have a negative impact on the patient?
Caritas has developed the "Skills Lab" for trainees, i.e. a skills laboratory.
This innovative place of learning has now been presented in the Caritas care center in Unterhaching.
In principle, the "Skills Lab" is a kind of training center for trainees in outpatient care.
In a typical patient room, the prospective nurses simulate an emergency.
But not with people in need, but with a nursing doll.
Or, since the training always takes place in teams of two, in mutual allocation of roles: one person mimics the patient.
Concrete care situations are played through, such as “applying a compression bandage according to Pütter” for the treatment of venous diseases.
At first nobody intervenes in the role-playing game – everything is rather documented by video camera.
And then analyzed.
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Video analysis: The simulated care situations are recorded and then evaluated.
© Martin Becker
"The focus is on communication," explains Caritas specialist Thomas Hartinger.
In the exercises, for which there are small, sophisticated scripts, moments of stress are simulated.
For example, if a "bulky patient" refuses treatment and sometimes gets a little louder.
Andreas Klett, who documents the role play, adds: "How did the student feel in this situation, are there alternative courses of action?" The students pursue questions like these in self-reflection when they look at the video recording of their nursing exercise.
"It's often about finding communicative door openers," said Andreas Klett.
The training scenario is repeated several times and evaluated again and again.
"In the third or fourth round you see an increase."
It's often the little things: is the patient addressed in a friendly manner by his or her name, are the first moves correct?
"Nuances can sometimes save the whole day," says Thomas Hartinger.
The change of perspective is also helpful: "When a student plays the patient and feels first-hand what it's like when the yoghurt spoon is put too roughly in his mouth."
"Nobody needs to be embarrassed in this context"
The fact that the complex care scenarios, whether changing the technical dressing or going to the toilet for an obese patient with urinary incontinence, can be trained in the "Skills Lab" has various advantages for the training.
The protected laboratory environment with care dummy ensures that there are no effects on real patients.
"Nobody needs to be embarrassed in this context," says Thomas Hartinger.
This promotes individual learning, theory-practice transfer, professional skills.
He speaks of a "positive error culture", the constant analyzes and repetitions "provide the security of action for the real case of care".
For a demonstration, Caritas training experts Doris Sander and Melissa Kaplan slip into the roles of patient and nurse.
For example, how do you deal with the fact that the information about nice weather is countered by the fact that the patient is ashamed to go out into the street with her walker and therefore prefers to stay in the living room?
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The Skills Lab team: (from left) Andreas Klett, Thomas Hartinger, Doris Sander and Melissa Kaplan
© Martin Becker
This training lasts six to eight hours and is attended not only by Caritas trainees in Unterhaching, but also by cooperation partners such as Munich clinics or nursing schools.
"It's great what has been created here," says Matthias Hilzensauer, at Caritas district manager for the district.
“We are thus sending a positive signal for training in nursing professions.
I have wanted this approach for years.”
Everyone benefits from the “Skills Lab”: the patients, because they receive highly trained nursing staff;
the trainees because they learn in a protected environment.
In the medium term, there are plans to expand the training laboratory to include further training for established employees: Appreciative workshops are intended to increase their motivation.
More news from Unterhaching and the district of Munich can be found here.
