The Practice Arena as a Learning Environment

The Practice Arena as a Learning Environment

Clinical practice in hospital plays an important role of learning environment. Clinical learning can provide knowledge, socializing in professional education and is the most influential factors in the development of learner and new staff. A positive learning environment will improve quality of care. This it is important not only for learning psychomotor skills but also for the development of attitudes, knowledge and clinical problem solving abilities.

In this assignment I will discuss about potential and limitation aspect of my workplace as a learning environment that is focus on physical environment, social climate and other factors that can affect the learning. As a Unit manager, it is my responsibility to create an atmosphere that is conducive for learning and where learner and newly transfer staff can find a sense of place. There are a few approaches, which most positively adhere to learning, when it comes to setting up our clinical workplace and factors to consider like equipment, storage system, electrical system, furniture arrangements, technology and the most important is a comfortable atmosphere.

Our dialysis clinical working area is supply with 5 unit of air condition and it is provide a comfortable temperature to our staff and also to our clients. We have 5 Haemodialysis machine that is fully used by 21 of our client, three times a week with duration of four hours dialysis per session. Unfortunately, the limited space due to existing physical structure makes this bulky machine and other equipment difficult to arrange. This entire machine is place in one treatment bay. As the day goes on, a room full of people and machine will heats up pretty quickly. Rooms with this electronic medical equipment, such as dialysis machine, computer and other electric equipment need to have adequate ventilation to maintain a good cooling system.

I personally agreed, this physical environment is not suitable to accommodate too many trainees in one time and this factor identified to contribute to a non conducive environment for learning. Placing students in small groups can provide an opportunity for them to become more actively engaged in their learning and a comfortable physical environment encourages their learning. To overcome these problems, we have proposed to our upper management to limit the number of learners so learning opportunities during their placement is more effective.

It is also important to make sure all our equipment including electrical system such as lighting; computer and furniture are operational in good condition. If this facilities is not in good condition, or not functioning well, this will make our staff, our client and our learners fell uncomfortable and they will not stay focused on what they do or learned. All this equipment must be safe to use with proper setting to avoid injury during learning session. Learner needs a learning environment that does not danger to them (Knowles, 1984). A safe learning environment must be provided for practise.

Even though, physically our work place in not really suitable for learning due to limited of space to accommodate huge number of trainee, there are a few learning opportunities to enhance learning in our setting. Currently, we had one unit of desktop computer that is connected to internet. The information available online can assist us and learner in ensuring their practice is evidence based. Furthermore, they should consider the internet is an important tool for their communication. Independent learning helps to reduce the detrimental effect of having too much content to cover in limited time and it provide a unique education gain (Petty, 2000).

They should have a basic computer literacy and the disadvantage of our e-learning is connectivity to the internet and this is the main issue that continue to exist in our internet based education. We have only one computer with slower modem and with less capable speed connectivity. It is important, individual learner or our staff must be able to recognised their personal learning style and determine if this internet-based is appropriate. We had discussed with our management to consider all the possible solution to improve e-learning opportunities in our unit.

Another learning opportunity that we have in our clinical practice is a reading material such as Clinical Practice Guidelines, Standard of Procedure, Manual Operating Procedure, reference books, health literature and others relevant pamphlets. Most of this material is available in hard copy as well as in soft copy. Most of this copy is kept in one corner to make it readily accessible in our unit. Clinical Practice Guideline, standard Operating Procedure and Manual Operating Procedure are the important tools to serve as a guide which is useful in daily clinical practice. They may reduce inappropriate variation in clinical practice and at the same time to achieve the desired outcome. One of the major issues is a perception that guidelines will limit clinical freedom and they may be used as a standard against which to judge complaint.

Learning in the workplace is about learning with and from others. Increased in workload and the need to work for longer hour due to increasing number of patient is an issues in our unit. Friedman and Rosenmen, (1974) cited the 'Type A personality' shown the evidence of link between stress and heart diseases. Lack of staffs has a negative impact in educational support and training. Stress and heavy burden of responsibilities in guiding student and at the same times perform clinical care are much expected (Butter worth et al, 1998). Important factors for the creation of positive learning environment are we must have a friendly staff with positive attitude and allocate time for teaching. Good communication is essential as a learner feeling that they are part of the team.

Besides lack of manpower, increasing workload and stress, other contributing factors that are affecting our clinical learning environment is our own nursing staff attitudes. Some of them are not treating learner with kindness, understanding and did not show willingness to teach them. This make our learning atmosphere was not very relaxed and make learner worry about asking questions and they feel not welcome during placement.

Supportive learning climate is one of the critical elements of human resource development, and there is a need for facilitation in the development of