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Trevor Gibbs

Publications and source records attributed to Trevor Gibbs.

11 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed2006

Not just another multi-professional course! Part 1. Rationale for a transformative curriculum.

Undergraduate inter- and multi-professional education has traditionally aimed to develop health professionals who are able to collaborate effectively in comprehensive healthcare delivery. The respective professions learn from and about each other through comparisons of roles, responsibilities, powers, duties and perspectives in order to promote integrated service. Described here is the educational rationale of a multi-professional course with a difference; one that injects value to undergraduate health professional education through the development of critical cross-field knowledge, skills and attitudes that unite rather than differentiate professions. The aim of this course, offered at the Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Cape Town, is to lay an integrated, pan-professional foundation for the advancement of collective commitment to and understanding of national health and social development objectives such as primary health care, human rights and professionalism. Pan-professional refers to curriculum content that is core and of critical relevance to all participating professions. What is learned, how it is learned, how learning is facilitated and how it is applied, has been co-constructed by a multi-professional design team representing a range of health professions (audiology, medicine, occupational therapy, nursing, physiotherapy and speech therapy) and academic disciplines (anthropology, sociology, psychology, history, African studies and social development, information technology and language literacy). Education specialists facilitate the ongoing design process ensuring that the structure and content of the curriculum complies with contemporary adult learning principles and national higher education imperatives. Designing the original curriculum required the deconstruction of intra-professional and disciplinary canons of knowledge and ways of 'doing things' in order to identify and develop shared interpretations of critical epistemology and axiology for health professional practice in the South African context. This enabled the alignment of the learning objectives, at first year level, of all the represented professions. The educational rationale guiding the curriculum design process is discussed in Part 1 of two articles. Part 2 describes the 'nuts and bolts' or practicalities of the curriculum design process.

Curriculum↗
PubMed2006

Not just another multi-professional course! Part 2: nuts and bolts of designing a transformed curriculum for multi-professional learning.

Multi-professional education has traditionally aimed to develop health professionals who are able to collaborate effectively in comprehensive healthcare delivery. The respective professions learn about their differences in order to work together, rather than developing unity in their commitment to a shared vision of professionalism and service. In this, the second of two papers, the 'nuts and bolts' or practicalities of designing a transformed curriculum for a multi-professional course with a difference is described. Guidelines for the curriculum design process, which seeks to be innovative, grounded in theory and relevant to the learning of the students and the ultimately the health of the patients, include: valuing education; gaining buy-in; securing buy-out; defining of roles; seeking consensus; negotiating difference and expediting decisions. The phases of the design process are described, as well as the educational outcomes envisaged during the process. Reflections of the designers, in particular on what it means to be a multi-professional team, and a reconceptualization of multi-professional education are presented as challenges for educators of health professionals.

Cooperative Behavior↗
PubMed2005

Intervention programme: a supported learning programme for educationally disadvantaged students.

The apartheid system of social engineering in South Africa enforced the segregation of racial groups. It lasted for 50 years, and had an impact on every aspect of society. It particularly affected the education system, resulting in inferior primary and secondary teaching of black learners. Ten years after the dissolution of apartheid, the consequences are still being felt in tertiary institutions. This legacy presents a challenge to South African medical schools, especially at a time of curriculum transformation. This paper describes how the issues of social and educational discrepancies are being addressed at the University of Cape Town.

Black People↗
PubMed2005

Information technology and information literacy for first year health sciences students in South Africa: matching early and professional needs.

The need to develop skills in Information Technology and Information Literacy for a career in the Health Sciences is not in dispute. More debated are the most appropriate ways of assessing existing skills, addressing training needs and incorporating IT/IL learning, and at what stage skills development should begin to be most effective. This article reports on three years of experience with a training model in the Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Cape Town, in providing IT/IL skills to a diverse group of students in South Africa. It provides an evaluation of the activities and discusses the possible advantages of the methodology. This training model is based on measuring rather than assuming existing computer skills in incoming students; it is informed by curriculum demands and focuses on early intervention and close integration into mainstream undergraduate courses.

Computer Literacy↗
PubMed2004

Community-based or tertiary-based medical education: so what is the question?

This edition of Medical Teacher brings to our attention another insightful article from the Flinders University Rural Clinical School, led by Professor Paul Worley (Worley et al., 2004), enquiring as to what students actually do on their clinical rotations. Beginning with the premise that there is little published material exploring the learning activities undertaken by students in different learning environments, Worley and colleagues conducted a study that was able to compare three groups of students. These students were exposed to the same curricula material in three different environments, namely an urban teaching hospital, a remote secondary referral hospital and a rural community-based programme. Although Worley et al. admit to the small numbers of students within the study, and the generalisability of their results, the community students reported greater and more valuable patient contact, more effective time spent in clinical settings and an increased time being supervised by experienced clinicians, compared to the secondary and tertiary based students. The secondary hospital based students reported more time spent in lectures and tutorials than the tertiary or community-based students and the time spent in their clinical settings was valued less than the time spent learning at home. The impact is that this is yet another paper that demonstrates the value of communities as a credible alternative to the traditional teaching hospital. However it does raise other questions regarding medical education and community learning.

Clinical Clerkship↗
PubMed2001

More than just a shopkeeper: involving the community pharmacist in undergraduate medical education.

The 1996 Medical Undergraduate course at Liverpool University provides the opportunity for second-year medical students to explore the importance of the roles of the personnel in the extended primary healthcare team. The community pharmacist is one such member that the students may not meet during a standard general practice attachment but who could have an important role in student understanding of the community. Community pharmacists appear to be an underused resource in undergraduate teaching. This paper describes a pilot study in which the students explored the role and potential of the community pharmacist. Students attending one Community Teaching Centre arranged to visit the local pharmacy with predefined and discussed learning objectives. They then returned after the visit to discuss their findings in a group environment. Evaluation demonstrated that this experience changed the students' perceptions and understanding of the role of the pharmacist. They felt encouraged to make more appropriate use of the pharmacist in the future, whilst becoming aware of the undervalued feelings of the pharmacists. The pharmacists were greatly encouraged by the initiative, believing it to be a worthwhile experience for the students, and encouraging better use of pharmacists in the future.

Journal Article↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Family medicine in South Africa: where are we now and where do we want to be?

OBJECTIVES: This paper outlines the development of family medicine in South Africa with special reference to the process leading to the recognition of this discipline as a medical specialty. It also examines the constraints under which the discipline has had to function, considers where the discipline should be, seeks to identify the barriers to its further development and suggests ways in which to overcome these. METHODS: A short review was carried out of the available South African literature to record the advancement of the discipline and the international literature was searched for articles supporting this direction. RESULTS: The situation in South Africa is complicated by the existence of many doctor groupings claiming to represent the generalist and the perception that family medicine only addresses the needs of middle-class citizens. A flawed consultative process leading up to the present stage has contributed to this perception. CONCLUSIONS: The available literature supports the establishment of family medicine as a speciality. Developments in South Africa, such as raising the status of Family Medicine and creating a compulsory rotation through family medicine as an extended internship and the creation of registrar posts in family medicine will advance the discipline in a positive manner, whilst possibly attempting to resolve the medical migration issues that are presently destroying Sub-Saharan Africa's health services.

Family Practice↗