Take care of both heart and brain

Our next is experiential learning principle Is an experiential learning involves the heart as much as the brain. To influence what happens in the student’s brain, a preceptor have to discover what’s in the students heart. I can share an example of this from my days as a hospital pharmacy director, and a hospital in Merced California back in the early 90s. One of our technicians whose name was Jennie, his mother was admitted to the hospital. And, I curiously noticed, how people reacted to the fact that you need mother was a patient in our hospital. When one of the technicians finished making IV solutions for Jennie’s mother rather than waiting for the early rounds.

That technician said: “Hey I’ve got Jennie’s mom’s IV, I’m gonna run it up to the floor.” And when physician’s orders came down to the pharmacy for Jennie’s mom. Everybody was double and triple checking to make sure they had exactly right. Now it is very interesting. And after Jennie’s mother was discharged from the hospital, in our next staff meeting, I raised the question. Did you notice how people reacted to Jennie’s mother being in the hospital?

And everybody said: “Wow, yeah, we wanted to take care of Jennie’s mom.” And I post a question. What if Neal, one of the pharmacists, what if his wife was a patient in the hospital, would you have given her the same level of special care? They said, “Oh, certainly! We would have done the same thing for Neal’s wife.” What about Benny’s daughter? And, we realized that, if any of the members of the pharmacy department, if our loved one of theirs was admitted to the hospital. Entire department would have given the same level of extreme special care. And raise the question isn’t it odd? We should let everybody received that level of care. Everyone in the hospital is important to somebody.

And if we will give that level of care to the friends and the relatives of our own pharmacy staff. Shouldn’t we give the same level of care to every patient? As people looked around and started to think about it a little bit. They realize, “Yes! we should!” And from that day forward, if anyone asked member of the pharmacy department with the philosophy of the department was, in terms of how we provide service. They would answer with one word. “Mom.” Because they remember the experience from Jennie’s mom was a patient. And they endeavored to provide that same level of care to every patient in the hospital. That’s the type of impact that a preceptor could have on a student.

When they notice that something happens, that relates to the student’s value system. If the preceptor can explore discussion and bring that type of realization out. It can totally change a student’s attitude from one in which the student doesn’t realize the full impact the pharmacist can have on patient care. A significant impact in improving the quality of life of a patient. And I bringing that forward and deepening the appreciation for that type of impact. You can totally change the students approach to learning. Guaranteed Preceptor Techniques, number 11, is to light a fire. This is what we’re talking about. William

Butler Yeats, an Irish poet, once said: “Education is not the filling of a pail but the lighting of a fire.” It’s about igniting a desire to learn in a student. And even if we can’t specifically ignite that fire. Initially, we can put the student in a situation that will allow them to experience potentials to ignite that fire through their own experiences. And when there is a spark from a particular interaction that a student had with a patient, or another member of the medical staff, the preceptor can engage in discussions with the student. To build that fire, to make it stronger and elastic. Ultimately, what we want to do is enable that students brain to take off.

Not just stay in the ground but the light a fire of enthusiasm and motivation in the students. Great coaches inspire players to do their best. We talking about John Wooden, who was a kind of coach who inspired his players. You focus on the pursuit of excellence and during practice, he didn’t want his players thinking about winning and losing. He said, “Focus on excellence! Focus on doing the best that you can and practice, then extending that commitment to excellence to the games.” And if you focus on excellence and you have that kind of motivation, winning and losing will take care of itself.

Remember, his teams won 10 out of 12 national championships with that kind of motivation, that kind of commitment to excellence. Great preceptors inspire students in the same way, to learn and to do their best. They have to look for opportunities to touch the students heart in ways that provide that motivation. Guaranteed preceptor technique number 12 is “Rules Are Rules.” It’s important for the preceptor set high standards, that are reasonable but high, in the pursuit of excellence. And to never ignore a violation of the rotation policy or expectation. This is a very simple mistake to make and it’s not an easy thing to do to call the rules.

Especially when you consider that a typical rotation for an APPE student is four weeks so the students about two weeks into rotation and they’re behaving badly or they’re not completing assignments. Their performances in some way is deficient. There’s a great temptation for the preceptor simply say, “Hey, I waited out two weeks and the student will be gone and I won’t worry about it anymore.” A preceptor shouldn’t think of it that way. When a student is completing a rotation with you, you have a responsibility to help that student learn, to help that student achieve excellence. And if they’re performing and deficient manner, whether it’s a lack of knowledge and skill, or lack of professionalism and behavior.

It’s up to the precentor to take action to correct the deficiency. As some consideration for the next rotation, maybe you can correct the problem and makes it like a little easier for the next preceptor, and hopefully if a student prior to your rotation has problem. The preceptor before you will fix those problems. Another thing to keep in mind is that it’s very important to be proactive. If you don’t deal with a performance deficiency of a student, that problem is not going to go away on its own. It’s only going to be alleviated if the preceptor is proactive in dealing with it.

One of the things I learned from a preceptor that I had, this was an educational preceptor when I was learning to teach high school. Back in the early 1970s, preceptor Mate Gary Einstein taught me that it’s much better as a teacher or a presenter to start out tough and then ease up as the semester or the rotation goes forward. If you start out very relax and let students get away with things with not following the rules over the policy. It’s much more difficult to tighten things up, and get the student to comply, after you already be easy on them. And so I would suggest that you begin the rotation right off the bat.

By making sure that students uphold the rules in a strict sense. And then once you learn that the students are agreeable and they are following the rules. At that point, you can begin to ease things up. Lastly, if you don’t address performance or behavioral issue promptly with well-timed feedback and corrective action, you’re not going to have much success in dealing with it. Now let me refer back to the three guaranteed preceptor techniques that we’ve covered that relate to feedback. Remember, the first one was pinpoint feedback. We have to make sure that our feedback is specific. That we make it very clear to the students what the deficiency is. How we want them to change their behavior.

Another one was that the feedback is real time, so we have real-time feedback and pinpoint feedback. Real-time feedback recursive the fact that the feedback must be timely. We must be prompt and providing feedback, not wait too long. If a student has a problem today, we can’t wait until next week to deal with. We have to deal with it in real-time as soon as possible. It’s a pinpoint. Make sure its specific. And then lastly, the third element of feedback is that it needs to be net positive. So if you find yourself having to provide a regular negative feedback because you have a student who’s not following the rules and not performing effectively.

You need to find some ways to provide some positive feedback as well. So the net feedback that you’re providing to the student is still have a positive nature.