By Maya Hagan
The consequences of poor health care training are not lost on Dr. Meg Zomorodi. It was her reality when she lost her mother for a medical error. Now a provost associated for interprofessional health initiatives at the University of Caroline du Nord Chapel Hill, Zomorodi has transformed its reality into a reform.
She co-created and teaches biology 119, experimenting with health professions: a learning partnership by the service for pre-health students. This course, proposed for the first time in the fall 2024 semester, trains undergraduate students to serve as hospital guards who help ensure patient safety.
“My mother died of a health error where someone did not respond appropriately,” said Zomorodi. “So, having created something that indirectly saves the life of another person is a cool moment in a full circle for me.”
While the death of his mother gave Zomorodi a passion for improving health care education, the pandemic propelled her into action.
Zomorodi co-developed the course in Response to nursing shortage Presented by the COVID-19 pandemic. According to a study carried out by the National Council for State Councils for Nursing, around 100,000 nurses left the field during the Pandemic COVID-19 and 610,338 authorized nurses plan to leave nursing by 2027.
This semester, 41 UNC students act as patient guards, a role traditionally fulfilled by nurses and certified nursing assistants, to help relieve part of the stress to the hospital nursing staff. The work forces students to work in low acuity roles, supervising patients who cannot take care of themselves, like older patients in cognitive decline.
“I would like to extend it now and offer this program beyond UNC,” said Zomorodi.
The first two weeks of class are designated to train students in fields, including RCR certification, crisis prevention and intervention training and other clinical skills such as phlebotomy (blood drawing). Meanwhile, students also learn security protocols, in particular by completing environmental surveys before each quarter of work, which requires that they check and remove the elements that could cause bodily lesions. They learn to maintain a constant patient observation while protecting the dignity of the patient and having clear access to outings at all times.
“It is as much to protect yourself as safe as to keep them safe,” said Michele Ream, authorized nurse and clinical nurse who helps teach the course.
Michele Ream shows an appropriate procedure to interact with certain patients during a hospital goalkeeper change. Joseph Macia graceful photo
The course also obliges students to finish 24 hours of observation with a trained guardian where they learn to take blood and finish the checks that determine if they are able to obtain the role. Students are also studying conflicts and stress debriefing for critical incidents among other training requirements.
After the training, students meet every Monday with a health profession advisor and a member of the School of Nursing faculty. During these sessions, the class discusses the communication challenges and the conflicts they may have encountered as a goalkeeper. They also cover the way students can connect their experiences to the skills they need for professional schools.
“We teach them not only what to do and not to do in the role of patient guardian, but also that you can be an empathetic presence because sometimes these patients are confused,” said Zomorodi. “So how do you calm them down?” How do you engage them? How do you keep yourself safe?
Zomorodi said that students had to wear red scrubs to help identify them with the whistle in an emergency. They are also taught to press the Blue Code button if necessary – a training procedure which, in the past, helped a goalkeeper save the life of a patient.
Security protocols like these help the program to succeed. Until now, the program has provided 15 of the 26 students in the pilot program last fall with hospital jobs, according to Zomorodi. However, some employees of the hospital still have concerns such as the place where students of the students are placed in the hospital if there are no clear borders.
BIOLOGY 119 Students Reviews Training Modules. Joseph Macia graceful photo
“I think there should certainly be limits on the units on which they can help and the places where they are safe,” said Raygan Hawkins, a UNC and CNA student registered for UNC hospitals.
Hawkins, whose work includes patient session, said it thought that patients’ pupils of the patients should remain in low acuity roles such as the care of older patients, which Zomorodi stressed is the ‘One of the responsibilities of the Garden Students.
“I think it would be very useful for guards (students) to help nursing homes or perhaps even surgical places for hospitalized patients where (patients) are bedridden, but they are also completely competent and this Like if they need help, you can alert someone, ”Hawkins says.
Justin Gettings, assistant professor at UNC and the doctor in the departments of psychiatry and emergency medicine in UNC hospitals, agrees with Hawkins’ point of view that guards can be precious in specific contexts .
“I could see a really useful goalkeeper with an elderly patient or a denied patient,” said Gettings. “These patients will want to wander, they will leave, they will need someone who can be calm and reassuring.”
While students-Garders can have a useful role, objects highlighted the importance of knowing its limits when they work in health care.
“Knowing your scope is so important in medicine, so knowing what I am trained to do and what I feel comfortable is really a critical step in the training of anyone in the medical field,” said Gettings . “So, as long as the goalkeeper knows what they are there to do and feels confident in the kind of implementation of the next steps they need to get more level of higher level, so I think it is is a reasonable thing. “
Zomorodi said that students are not allowed on the psychiatric floor and they are not allowed to serve as a patient’s caretaker for other UNC students or teachers. However, while Zomorodi considers that the expansion of the program, health workers such as Hawkins emphasize the guarantee of certain training requirements, such as prevention and intervention training in crisis, remain in place .
Crisis prevention and intervention training can be different depending on the role of the health worker. However, the central objective is to defuse situations in a non -violent manner, according to Crisis Prevention Institute.
“I would never say that I have not prepared myself without preparation,” said Mallory Tadlor, a current student from the UNC and former biology goalkeeper 119. “I think the modules of the training we had to follow M ‘really helped in the scenarios. So it really helped my comfort level.
The Student Patient Sitter program not only helped students have their comfort levels, but also reaffirmed their confidence in the medical field in the future.
“I learned a lot about myself and what I wanted to continue in the future (which is) very difficult to know. So, without having any experience, I found it such a great resource, “said Tadlock.
Zomorodi said it hoped to offer this program to rural communities where there are a significant number of students applying for health professions. She wants to work with partners such as UNC Pembroke and UNC Wilmington.
Based on Tadlock’s comments and others, the implementation of this program in other hospitals may have a significant impact on health care experiences for patients and students.
“The first thing we heard from our nursing colleagues in the professional schools to which students apply, or even our colleagues from the Faculty of Medicine, is that if you can do patients seated, you can probably do anything” , said Zomorodi.
UNC Media HUB is a cohort of students from various concentrations within the Hussman School of Journalism and Media of the UNC Chapel Hill who collaborate to produce high -level integrated media packages covering North Carolina stories.
Republican our items for free, online or on paper, under a Creative Commons license.