The trickiest thing about teaching in my discipline area is…
The trickiest thing, but also the most important, is not losing sight of the fact that what we teach directly impacts patients. It is easy to ‘fail to see the woods for the trees’ and get caught up in providing more and more ‘content’ while overlooking the importance of non-technical skills – for example, communication skills, person-centred care, empathy, clinical reasoning and critical thinking skills. Knowledge and skills are incredibly important, but it is non-technical skills that have the most profound and lasting impact on the quality of patient care.
My favourite technology or tool…
I’m working with a team to develop a Virtual Empathy Museum (VEM) and I think it is going to be my favourite ‘technology’. The project is funded by the ATN and we are creating, collecting and curating a range of teaching resources designed to enhance empathy. At the risk of self-promotion – the VEM will be launched on December 7 (contact me or virtual.empathy.museum@uts.edu.au for more information).
The best advice for teaching I have ever received…
It is so simple, but easy to lose sight of…we are teaching adults, not children, and therefore how and what we teach, the manner in which we interact with students, our expectations and our teaching philosophy must reflect adult learning principles (my favourite adult education theorist is Malcolm Knowles).
I would describe my workspace as…
Calm, creative…but sometimes cluttered…
Outside of work, I am passionate about…
My family, my faith and shinrin-yoku (forest bathing.
