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25 April 2018 Photo Oteng Mpete
UFS and Medtronic collaboration set to enhance cardiac
From the left: Zampieri Luigi: Medtronic; Dania Choucair: Medtronic; Peter Fuller: Medtronic; Prof Francis Petersen: UFS Rector and Vice-Chancellor; Prof Gert van Zyl:Dean of the Faculty of Health Sciences, and Eline Visser: Medtronic.
A new Cardiac Simulation laboratory will be opened and hosted within the School of Biomedical Sciences’ Clinical Simulation and Skills Unit, at the University of the Free State’s Bloemfontein Campus. The new laboratory is a result of a partnership between Medtronic and UFS. 

The new laboratory will be used to enhance training for cardiothoracic, cardiology, vascular surgery, anaesthesiology and multiprofessional teams   such as doctors, nurses and allied health professionals. The establishment of the laboratory will be made possible by the generous provision of equipment for the establishment and operation of the Cardiac Simulation laboratory by Medtronic.  

Prioritising of patients at the heart of collaboration 
The development of a Cardiac Simulation laboratory at the UFS will not only benefit the training of specialists in various fields of specialisation but will also improve patient safety and reduce complication and mortality rates. The UFS is proud to be part of this initiative to train healthcare professionals to the benefit of the patients.

The Medtronic and UFS contract signing was attended by key stakeholders who included Prof Francis Smit: Head of Cardiothoracic Surgery; Prof Mathys Labuschagne: Head of the Clinical Simulation and Skills Unit; Prof Gert van Zyl: UFS Dean of the Faculty of Health Sciences and Prof Francis Petersen: UFS Rector and Vice-Chancellor. In attendance from Medtronic were Dania Choucair: Medtronic Director Clinical Research and Medical Education; Peter Fuller: Medtronic Country Director; Zampieri Luigi: Business Director   Cardiovascular Group; and Eline Visser: Business Manager   Structural Heart.

The Cardiac Simulation laboratory will make use of part task trainers, medium- and high- fidelity simulation as well as virtual-reality simulation to develop integrated interdisciplinary simulation programmes. These programmes are essential for proficiency development through deliberate practice and should become a statutory requirement for future trainees.

Objective and improved quality of training  
Standard cardiothoracic surgical training programmes are still based on the apprentice model. It implies that registrars in all programmes will attain surgical competency in addition to theoretical training fulfilling minimum statutory requirements for licensing and independent practice. It is highly dependent on surgical volumes, attitude of trainers and perceived surgical ability of the trainee. At best, it produces a mixed bag of competency levels. 

Well-designed integrated interdisciplinary simulation programmes offer an alternative that allows for deliberate practice in an organised step-wise progression model, with inbuilt assessment and feedback systems. This allows for proficiency training rather than competency training in which clear objectives can be met.

The UFS cardiothoracic programme is being designed as a hub and spoke model for South Africa and sub-Saharan Africa, combining distance learning with an onsite high-fidelity simulation and assessment centre. Off-site training in crew resource management or CRM (which addresses communication, decision-making, team-building and maintenance, workload management and situational awareness management), educational theory, surgical theory and basic bench model simulation will be provided. 

Multidisciplinary streams of knowledge 
According to Profs Francis Smit and Mathys Labuschagne, the role of simulation is a dynamic process of continuous movement between theory, simulation and clinical exposure.  “We strive to create an environment where there is free flow between these different components. Registrars and students come from different educational and cultural backgrounds in South Africa and Sub-Saharan Africa and by allowing deliberate practice for students with different needs to practice in their own time is contributing tremendously to students’ individual outcomes and development in the specialty.” 

This dynamic fulfils the needs of students with different competency levels and previous clinical exposure. Debriefing and formative assessment per session are pre-requisites for attending high-fidelity and virtual-reality simulation sessions at the Cardiac Simulation laboratory, because this kind of feedback contributes to the clinical and surgical development as well as inter-professional collaboration of the trainees. 

News Archive

Bullying in schools: Everyone’s problem
2005-06-03

From left:  Prof Gerhardt de Klerk, Dean: Faculty of the Humanities; Prof Corene de Wet; Prof Rita Niemann, Head of the Department of Comparative Education and Educational Management in the School of Education and Prof Frederick Fourie, Rector and Vice-Chancellor of the UFS

It is not only learners who are the victums of bullying in schools, but also the teachers. Prof. Corene de Wet from the Department Comparative Education and Educational Management at the University of the Free State reported, against the background of two studies on bullying in Free State secondary schools, that bullying is a general phenomena in these schools.

Prof. de Wet, who delivered her inaugural lecture on Wednesday night, is from the Department Comparative Education and Educational Management which resorts under the School of Education at the University of the Free State. She is the first women who became a full professor the School of Education.

Prof. de Wet says, “A student is being bullied or victimized when he or she is exposed, repeatedly and over time, to negative action on the part of one or more students. Bullying always includes the intentional use of aggression, an unbalanced relationship of power between the bully and the victim, and the causing of physical pain and/or emotional misery.

In some Free State schools there are victims and perpetrators of direct and indirect verbal, as well as emotional, physical and sexual bullying.

“Adults who say that bullying are part of the growing-up process and parents who set not only academic expectations but also social expectations to their children cause that victims are unwilling to acknowledge that they are being bulled. Many parents are also unaware of the levels of bullying their children are exposed to.

“Some of the learners were at least once a month the victim of direct verbal harassment, 32,45% were assaulted by co-learners and 11,21% of them were at east once per week beat, kicked, pushed and hurt in any other physical way. Free State learners are very vulnerable to bullies at taxis and on the school yard they are mostly exposed to bullies in bathrooms.

“Learners are usually bullied by members of the same gender. However, racial composition also plays a role in some Free State schools. A grade 12 girl writes, ‘There are boys in my school who act means against black people. When the teacher is out they take a red pen and write on the projector and spray it with spirits. It looks like blood and they would say it is AIDS and my friends and I have it.’

“Educators must take note of bullying in schools and must not shrug it off as unimportant. Principals or educators could be find guilty of negligence. A large number of educator respondents, 88,29%, indicated that they would intervene in cases of verbal bullying and 89,71% would intervene if they saw learners being physically bullied. However, only 19,97% of the learners who were victims of bullying were helped by educators/ other adults from their respective schools.

“The learners’ lack of trust in their educators’ abilities and willingness to assist them in the fight against bullying has important implications for education institutions. The importance of training must be emphasised.

Learners bully their educators to undermine their confidence. In Prof. de Wet’s study on educator-targeted bullying in Free State schools 24,85% of the respondents were physically abused by their learners, 33,44% were the victims of indirect verbal bullying, and 18,1% were at one time or another sexually harassed by their learners. These learner offences may lead to suspension.

“Educators are not only victims of bullying; some of them are the bullies. The South African Council for Educators prohibits bullying by educators. It is worrying that 55,83% of the educators who participated in the research project verbally victimised learners, 50,31% physically assaulted learners and a small percentage was guilty of sexual harassment.

“Every educator and learner in South Africa has the right to life, equal protection and benefit of the law, of dignity, as well as of freedom and security of the person. These rights will only be realised in a bully-free school milieu.

“To oppose bullying a comprehensive anti-bullying programme, collective responsibility and the establishment of a caring culture at schools and in the community is necessary,” said Prof. de Wet.
 

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