Dr Sharon Edwards

On completion of her training Dr Sharon Edwards worked for two years as a senior staff nurse on an acute medical ward, where she consolidated her training and developed practical and managerial skills. Following this position she transferred clinical experience to cardiac and respiratory specialties and intensive care nursing. Her philosophy of delivering patient care consists of the holistic approach and involves the multi-disciplinary team, relatives, partners and significant others. She started teaching in Higher Education in 1991, first managing a post-graduate course in intensive critical care nursing and later in under-graduate adult nursing. In her current role as a teacher she attempts to engage students in linking theory to practice using clinical examples. Impact of work Individual students have fed back about how learning to use story has impacted on their practice, for when they use a story to gain medical attention for a patient someone comes through. Using story she motivates and inspires staff, challenging them to rethink the nature of learning and teaching. Students seem to benefit from technology in the classroom as support for their learning. She listened to students when they stated simulations using manikins was limiting their performance, and could perform better with a real person. She implemented 'live' simulations, which have impacted on the students by: Transformative learning; Preparing students for professional work; Developing skills of management, leadership, and reflection-in-action skills; Starting to challenge and reflect on themselves; Learning to assess quality not only in themselves but in others. Plans for the future More work still needs to be done: Improving the documentation of patients' condition at the bedside using computer systems; Developing student led simulation, students becoming more involved in: Deciding the case scenarios drawn from their own clinical practice experience; Setting the marking criteria, devising their own standards for success; Moving from a paper self and peer assessment process in simulation, to a SimPad based student interactive self- and peer-assessment model; The use of capstone can be used in cross faculty simulation and can be transferred into a number of health and non-health care professions.