This post is provided by guest blogger, Tricia Padgurskis, graduate student at the University of St. Francis in Joliet, MS in Training and Development program.

When you go to a medical appointment or visit someone in the hospital, do you ever wonder whether the physician or nurse has been properly trained in central or IV-line insertion?

In the Medical Science Educator Journal (a peer-reviewed publication of the International Association of Medical Educators (IAMSE)), Cheung (2016) proposes that using instructional design provides effective and consistent training methods for medical procedures to professionals.  Like many professions, healthcare can have inconsistent training methods which may lead to patient safety concerns.  If you have studied Gagne’s nine events of instruction, you might enjoy the article’s description of a blended instructional design model in an example of how teach a chest tube insertion to staff (Cheung 2016).  Although the design was clearly described, the proposed educational model did not provide outcome results in staff/student actual skill performance.  Cheung only measured the learners’ perceptions of their training in a Likert scale pre- and  post-evaluation (Cheung 2016).  Hopefully, we will see future studies in job performance outcomes with this instructional design.

When you read this article, consider for yourself whether you might apply this instructional design to your clinical workplace!

Cheung L. (2016). Using an Instructional Design Model to Teach Medical Procedures. Medical Science Educator Journal, 26, 175–180. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40670-016-0228-9