YouTube as a source of clinical skills education


Duncan, Garwood-Ross and Haigh (2013)  undertook a study to asses the quality of clinical skills videos available on YouTube video sharing site. The authors indicated that the quality of the video material available regarding the 10 clinical skills reviewed was variable.

This paper describes the methodology used to evaluate 25 hours of content extracted from 100 YouTube sites across common clinical skills. These skills were chosen in consultation with first year nurses enrolled in their University diploma program. Ten clips using simple topic related search terms were evaluated for each skill. The evaluation criteria used was modified from Feller (1992).  The evaluation team were a practising nurse, health care academic and biologist. They separately reviewed the videos and a consensus score was developed for those videos where opinions differed.  The limitations of the study included mentioned only 10 clips of each topic were reviewed which was an average of 2.3% of available material.

The authors discussed the practice of lectures guiding students or choosing clips from credible sources such as the World Health Organisation. The authors suggested that guidelines be developed to enable self directed and independent learners could evaluate the content themselves.  The authors reported a lack of safety awareness of inherent within the content. The authors concluded by stating that YouTube video clips used for learning and teaching require vigorous evaluation. They also mention that lectures need to be more proactive in recommending YouTube material to supplement other methods.

The implications of using media clips for clinical supervision to augment learning and teaching remain. I have previously blogged about using media clips to provide visual cues or reinforce skills used in the experiential environment. This study provides information about her inherent quality of skills commonly undertaken. Clinical supervisors are also vested with the responsibility of ensuring that students who may have viewed one or many clips can critically analyse the quality of what they have viewed. It would be beneficial for both supervisor and student to use these clips for learning about best practice; discussing differences in ways of accomplishing a task and whether they meet best practice guidelines or not. If the content is deemed unsatisfactory, what could be done differently to improve the process? Providing the viewer is aware that the skills being viewed can be undertaken a number of ways; and/or they can discern the critical decision points, clips that are not best practice also have value as they provide learning opportunities for developing critical thinking skills.

Have you used media clips to augment your learning? Do you have any experiences or tips about evaluating the content you would like to share. You are welcome to comment here.

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