EBP Project: Will Every Two Hour Turning

EBP Project: Will Every Two Hour Turning and Positioning Decrease Pressure Ulcers in the Eldery Bed Bound Population in Nursing Homes?

Practicum: Clinical rotations with preceptor; serving patients with acute, chronic and new medical issues.

One of the things I have discovered during my recent experiences with both academic and clinical education and an EBP project is that there are numerous and effective ways of learning, presenting, and communicating. Each method, however, has one critical thing in common -- it must be a two-way path and none are effective unless there is clear communicative understanding on the part of the receipient, patient, family or colleague. Aristotle, for instance, once commented that "For the things we have to learn before we can do them, we learn by doing them." Experiential learning targets certain brain chemicals and allows a more personal approach to the individual's own particular brain chemistry. Because the individual is participating in the experience, more initiative and evaluative cognition responses are necessary (Beard, et.al., 2006). Reflective learning, too, is conceptual in nature. The gist of this theme is both for the student and instructor to reflect upon their own approaches to learning and then, in turn, using what works best in a given situation. For the learning process, reflection not only improves learning from experience throughout one's life, but is a way to promote more autonomy, outside-the-box thinking, and stimulation -- all with the encouragement of a clear analysis of feelings, emotions, thoughts, experiences, and conclusions (Moon, 2004). For me, this reflection has changed my approach to communicating results and, combined with Evidence-Based Practice, changed the way I approach scholarly issues.

When I think about ways to disseminate my research materials and knowledge of my project, I do understand that the formal way would be to publish the material in a peer-reviewed journal, ask for peer comments, and thus hope that there will be an audience who will read the material, use it to benefit patients, and then pass it on to others. However, one complimentary strategy to experiential learning is interactive learning. This approach incorporates social networking, computing, and modern technology into the learning environment, particularly based on advances in computers and communications since the 1990s. Interactive learning is learning the way people engaged in learning after 1990 prefer to learn; it relies on background knowledge to a degree, but also insists upon sharing of information, expanding scope of the lesson and process, and bringing in multidisciplinary bands of knowledge based on personal bias, interest, and experience. Interactive learning can also be paced differently than other approaches. Since so much is based on the learner "interacting" with media, it is perhaps a better medium for career oriented adults, multi-taskers, or to hold interest levels higher in subjects that students may traditionally view as rote or boring (Tapscott, 1998). My material might have a larger audience if it was integrated within the various blogs and forums in the profession, and not taking away from its scientific validity, allowed to become part of a less formalized learning culture of interested and motivated participants.

The challenge in any scholarly work is to ensure that the methodology and transcription of results are scientific, and the technique and approach ethical. For me, the challenge was moving my thinking about a subject into a paradigm shift -- moving from A=B to A (+/- a number of variables) might equal B. under certain conditions. This, I came to realize, surrounding the basic premise of critical thinking. This was a new way of looking at information -- processing that information in an analytical manner, and then bringing outside materials, past knowledge, and other stimuli to that core topic and processing the information so that it could be used and disseminated better (Hyrkas, et al., 2010). When Ludwig Wittgenstein noted, "You cannot know a thing if you do not doubt it," he may have been thinking about how we might use critical thinking in a scholarly way. This is not just in how we approach scholarly material -- but the manner that we ruminate and find new ways to continue our research and encourage feedback and critique -- all so the next round of dissemination will be more positive and helpful to the field, and therefore to patients.