DigitalCommons@UNMC

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  CS-CASH Pilot Grant: Improving Agricultural Worker Health & Safety Awareness through Multimodal, Case-Based Physician Assistant Education

  Carey Wheelhouse, Mia Hyde, Annie Wildermuth, and Wayne Mathews

  The University of Nebraska Medical Center Division of Physician Assistant Education intends to improve health outcomes of patients in Midwest agricultural communities through didactic, clinical, and case-based instruction of Physician Assistant (PA) students.

  Aims

  1. Increase PA student awareness of agricultural health and safety issues
  2. Increase PA student medical knowledge on respiratory health, chemical exposure, and noise-induced hearing loss
  3. Enhance PA student communication skills with agricultural patients
  4. Increase patient health care access in agricultural environments

  UNMC PA students will undergo learning specific to agricultural-related respiratory health issues, chemical exposures, and hearing loss, including preventative health education and communication with agricultural patient populations. Additionally, students will complete 12 weeks of clinical learning opportunities in a rural, primary care setting.

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  Looking Through the WINDOW©: a Metacognitive Instrument to Teach Physical Exam to Pre-clinical PA Students

  Wayne Mathews

  The initial transition from pre-clinical learning to clinical immersion is a significant and unique phase in a PA student’s education when students transition from spending more time learning in the classroom to experiential learning in the clinical setting. One essential component of that transition is the teaching of physical examination skills. The author introduces an instrument based on metacognitive theories of learning called WINDOW©. The instrument is evaluated using two consecutive PA student surveys employing a Mixed Methods approach.

  Student response gauged at two phases was positive: 79.31% agreed the WINDOW© instrument was relevant to clinical problem solving; 72.42% thought it was useful to their learning physical exam skills; and 72.41% thought it was a helpful adjunct to the rote format of the physical exam Green Sheet (n=59).

  Utilization of metacognitive techniques may be especially useful in the transition of learning physical exam to applying it in clinical phase of education.