Ramping up from pre-requisite admission criteria to undertaking pre-clinical curriculum is a leap for many. Pulling ideas from prior courses and understanding their clinical relevance is a daunting notion particularly when you have little or no direct patient care experiences to draw on. Students in clinical rotations have the advantage of connecting theory and practice. The use storytelling and portraying case scenarios provides a bridge in educating students to begin to think like a clinician.

Health professional students make use of a number of tools to assist in memorizing the vast amount of material that they must master during their training. Pneumonics come to mind. One can easily forget that what seems like a native tongue to a seasoned clinician, medical terminology, is actually yet another demand that novice students need to navigate. Relating this material to patient stories aids in placing material in the appropriate memory folder.

Manual skills, judgement calls, and time constraints play a real role in delivery of everyday care to patients. When students are flooded with trying to remember all their material, and have the pressure of having an instructor watch over them, it is no wonder that students are send into fight or flight mode. Under these circumstances it is easy for them to focus on details and miss the big picture. Thinking under pressure requires practice.

Clinicians know that they can arrive to their daily duties anticipating that something or other will throw their best laid plans into the need for a redesign. This important skill of re-prioritization based on current circumstances is something students are best served practicing in simulation prior to encountering this on their own in clinical settings. The ability to experience curve balls and debriefing with an instructor is a valuable addition to traditional delivery of didactic material.

Biography:
Chris Carlucci Bacchi brings a wealth of knowledge, skills, and experience to her passion for health care education. Areas of focus include pathophysiology, assessment, and simulation. She received her M.D. from The University of California, San Francisco, M.S. from The University of California, Berkeley, a Certificate in Bioethics from Cambridge University, and her B.S.N. from The Catholic University ofAmerica. Dr. Bacchi completed residency at Stanford University. She has spent the last twelve years as an instructor at Dominican University of California. Her expertise in both nursing and medicine offers a unique perspective in communicating new material to novice students.