Essential Skills For Higher Education And Healthcare

The higher education involves research, teaching, exacting applied work and social service activities in the universities. In this essay, the role of the student in higher education along with the role of Operating Department Practice (OPD) in higher education is to be discussed. My strength and weakness as a student while entering higher education and the role of future healthcare practitioners are to be explained. The information regarding student's ethics and conduct is to be mentioned. The different learning styles are to be identified and my learning style, as well as its impact on my learning, is to be discussed. The areas of improvement in relation to various skills in higher education are to be explained. The significance of the essay is that it would inform the student regarding responsibilities to be performed as an OPD and the skills to be improved before entering the professional field to ensure effective delivery of care.

The higher education brings more possibilities and opportunities for the students to execute specialised learning to develop greater knowledge and information regarding the subject of their interest. This is because in higher education students have opportunity to study individually where they gather information by researching various sources and accessing assistance from experienced professors who delivery specialised information to the students. In higher education, the universities expect the students to study with greater focus so that they can be able to gather better and intricate information regarding the topic to show improved academic progress. In higher education, the students are to be present in all classes as it creates opportunity for the students to personally involve in asking question from the lectures to resolve their queries and confusion leading to develop enhanced learning and wide number of the topic explored (Billett et al. 2018).

The Health and Care Professional Council (HCPC) regarding OPD student ethics and conduct mention that OPD students are to work within their limits of skills and knowledge as well as are to promote and protect the service user’s interests while providing care (HCPC, 2020). This means that I need to provide care within my limits and offering support beyond my knowledge would lead to develop error in care that would create negative impact on the health of the patient. In addition, to work as an OPD student in offering care to the service users I require respecting their decisions and valuing their opinions as well as determine proper care for them to work in the best interest of their health. The HCPC also mentions that OPD students while working in the hospitals are to maintain confidentiality, maintain proper records of patients and provide care in non-discriminative manner as well as remain aware of the diversity in practice to be maintained for support culture perspectives and equality for the patients (HCPC, 2020). Thus, while working as an OPD student in the placement I need to provide equal care to all patients as well as act in such a way that their cultural thinking is not hurt. Moreover, I need to be aware regarding avoid disclosing the personal details of the patients to maintain confidentiality.

The Operational Department Practitioner (OPD) is referred to as the type of healthcare providers who are involved with overall planning as well as delivery of preoperative care. The role of the OPD during the first stage of the operation when the patient is to be provided anaesthetic is to analyse the health condition of the patient for determining any allergies or fasting status and arrange individual care for them. They also have the role to place them on the operative table in the correct position (Rodger and Mahoney, 2017). The OPD has the role to assemble specialist medications and operative equipment such as anaesthetic equipment and intravenous equipment to be required by the patient to receive anaesthesia. In this stage, the OPD also prepares a checklist of the surgical equipment to be required for the patient’s surgery to ensure any hindrance during the operation.

In the surgical stage, the OPD professionals have the role to prepare and arrange surgical equipment as well as materials for the surgeon to help them operate effectively. They also require making sure all the equipment and swabs used during the surgery are not left inside the body of the patient in any way (Rodger and Mahoney, 2017). After completion of the surgery, the OPD professionals have the role to monitor patients until their recovery from anaesthetic and surgery (Rodger and Mahoney, 2017). In life-long learning course for OPD, the professionals are to learn from their mistakes and accomplishment as well research regularly to remain updated about the additional skills and knowledge needed by them (Rodger and Mahoney, 2017). This is to make them capable to offer quality care to the patient. The Life-long learning in OPD profession is promoted through continuous professional development (CPD) which involves interested professionals and students in the field to include into training and educational courses related to upgrading their knowledge and skills regarding OPD.

My initial reflection regarding higher education is that I tried to become dedicated to my studies and placements to gather wide amount of knowledge and upgrade my skills. This is because I understood that informative resources and practical experiences in higher education are essential for successful professional beginning. Moreover, I focussed on making effective time management because I understood that effective scheduling of my activities and accomplishing them within deadlines is essential to later prepare myself for offering timely care to patients as well as manage work-life balance. I also understood that I need to be responsible for my learning and success because I know my strengths and the weakness to be resolved along with the improvement required in learning style to become a better individual. In higher education, the university mentions students to be self-independent and improve problem-solving skills (Wall, 2017). This is because I understood that in higher education and further practical field I would not always be able to get assistance and need to develop solution from own to resolve difficulties to become a successful professional and deliver quality care to patients. There is wide difference between higher and lower education which required to be understood by students to develop improved mindset in resolving and accepting challenges faced in higher education (Wall, 2017).

In prior learning, I was in lower education and the teachers would direct and instruct at each step to me regarding the materials and information I require to excel my studies and perform well in examinations. However, at present, it has become my responsibility to gather information from lectures and excel in studies. In order to further understand my learning style, I completed the questionnaire produced by Honey and Mumford whereby analysing the strength and weakness of an individual their specific learning style is understood. The Honey and Mumford mention there are mainly four learning styles which are activist, theorists, pragmatist and reflector (Bontchev et al. 2018). The completion of the questionnaire helped me understood that I have pragmatist learning style. The pragmatists are seen to be active in applying their learning to real-world and avoid abstract concepts as well as are sincere to develop new theories but avoid engaging in unclear learning (Bontchev et al. 2018). I understood that I have extensive zeal to learn through the application of theories in real-world as well as I am a realistic person who avoids executing action without resolving confusion.

In an individual, strength that helps and weakness that prevents accomplishment are present which they usually remain unaware and by executing SWOT analysis the aspects can be determined. My SWOT analysis revealed that I have strength of effective time management, communication and problem-solving. However, I identified that I have weak creative thinking which I intend to improve by exploring more information related within my field by going beyond my comfort zone. I have weakness in narrative skills for which I am going to take training on academic writing to develop understanding of the way words and phrases are to be used for proper narration of information to be easily understood by readers. I have mentioned an action plan that I will follow to get over my weakness through training on academic writing (Appendix B). One of my threats is I have hindered memorising skills due to which I often forget essential information. (Appendix A)

The above discussion informs that students are to minutely focus and aware of their learning style to excel in studies. In higher education, communication with the lecturers and searching for information to improve knowledge is required as it is not like lower education where the students are helped by the teachers at each step of learning. The role of OPD is to help health professionals in the surgical process and for life-long learning, OPD professionals are to focus on continuous professional development (CPD). The proper improvement of knowledge regarding the role of OPD can also be developed effectively by paying attention at work in the placement. My recommendation to students in higher education is to become self-dependent, access knowledge through following of lectures, execute effective research and memorise facts to excel.

References:

• Billett, S., Cain, M. and Le, A.H., 2018. Augmenting higher education students’ work experiences: Preferred purposes and processes. Studies in Higher Education, 43(7), pp.1279-1294. Available at: https://s3.amazonaws.com/academia.edu.documents/53382130/Augmenting_higher_education_students_work_experiences_preferred_purposes_and_processes.pdf?response-content-disposition=inline%3B%20filename%3DAugmenting_higher_education_students_wor.pdf&X-Amz-Algorithm=AWS4-HMAC-SHA256&X-Amz-Credential=AKIAIWOWYYGZ2Y53UL3A%2F20200217%2Fus-east-1%2Fs3%2Faws4_request&X-Amz-Date=20200217T084324Z&X-Amz-Expires=3600&X-Amz-SignedHeaders=host&X-Amz-Signature=f2fc8e1bdaa6a0f759b718dd09351ea6ee4d7b8f671a71a818c86ff7bd825972 [Accessed on: 17th February 2020]
• Bontchev, B., Vassileva, D., Aleksieva-Petrova, A. and Petrov, M., 2018. Playing styles based on experiential learning theory. Computers in Human Behavior, 85, pp.319-328. Available at: https://research.ou.nl/ws/files/8462782/pagination_CHB_5315.pdf [Accessed on: 17th February 2020]
• HCPC 2020, The standards of proficiency for operating department practitioners, Available at: https://www.hcpc-uk.org/standards/standards-of-proficiency/operating-department-practitioners/ [Accessed on: 17th February 2020]
• Rodger, D. and Mahoney, C., 2017. From healthcare assistant to student operating department practitioner—are you ready for the ODP challenge?. British Journal of Healthcare Assistants, 11(5), pp.248-251. Available at: https://s3.amazonaws.com/academia.edu.documents/53099782/bjha.2017.11.5.248.pdf?response-content-disposition=inline%3B%20filename%3DFrom_healthcare_assistant_to_student_ope.pdf&X-Amz-Algorithm=AWS4-HMAC-SHA256&X-Amz-Credential=AKIAIWOWYYGZ2Y53UL3A%2F20200217%2Fus-east-1%2Fs3%2Faws4_request&X-Amz-Date=20200217T084458Z&X-Amz-Expires=3600&X-Amz-SignedHeaders=host&X-Amz-Signature=2f978126803896aabd57e2ceaf791626a46591e570bc96567bcb2922d756dfda [Accessed on: 17th February 2020]
• Wall, T., 2017. A manifesto for higher education, skills and work-based learning. Higher Education, Skills and Work-Based Learning. Available at: https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/96772874.pdf [Accessed on: 17th February 2020]