Teaching made easy — a manual for health professionals

  • Ruth Chambers &
  • David Wall
Radcliffe Medical Press, Abingdon pp 194, price £18.95, 2000 ISBN 1-85775-373-9 | ISBN: 1-85775-373-9

This book has been written for health service educationalists, is multiprofessional in its outlook and the target readership ranges from nurse tutors and GP course organisers to university lecturers and deans ie anyone teaching health professionals at undergraduate or postgraduate level.

It is written very much in a practical 'how to do it' style, and it is apparent that the authors are experienced practitioners in the subject and can speak from experience and provide practical tips. They have also succeeded in communicating their message without excessive use of jargon in a field that is becoming increasingly jargonised; but where jargon is used it is well explained. This makes the book eminently readable by the range of health professionals that it targets.

The following highlights some of the main features:

  • The use of boxes throughout the text for providing key information, giving appropriate examples and summarising concepts or issues that are raised is an excellent feature.

  • All chapters are well referenced and up-to-date for those who wish to explore certain avenues further.

  • The practical orientation with useful tips for educationalists or facilitators in education, eg in organising meetings, courses, workshops or even lectures and seminars are extremely useful.

  • The inclusion of appendices which may be of practical value; and the glossary of terms although rather brief adds to the practical usefulness of this publication.

The first two of the eight chapters deal with educational concepts beginning with multiprofessional education, use of a personal portfolio and lifelong learning, and even including an account of the influence of psychology and personality on learning styles and motivation. Chapters 3, 4 and 5 are heavily annotated with practical tips for educational facilitation and assessment while Chapters 6 and 7 provide practical assistance with concepts such as mentoring peer assessment and giving feedback. The last Chapter discusses the implications of delivering healthcare and education in an ever changing and evolving NT-IS system. This acknowledges the fact that the only thing that remains constant in the Health Service is change, and the latest change is the introduction of clinical governance, managed clinical networks, interprofessional partnerships and collaboration. All but two of the references at the end of Chapter 8 are from the last 3 years of the century which provides an indication of its contemporary nature.

A few minor drawbacks of this book are that in an attempt to cater for the broad range of health professionals some will find it oversimplistic. Some aspects of teaching are therefore dealt with rather superficially and some concepts omitted completely. An example of the former is the discussion on assessment of attitude and the concept of peer teaching, peer tutoring and peer assessment. An example of omissions is that while it is fair to say that many of the concepts discussed are generic among the health professionals, there is a heavy bias towards medical teaching and practice with little acknowledgement of other health professions such as dentistry where on occasion this would have enhanced the demonstration of a particular concept. An example is the 'buddy' operator-assistant pairing that lends itself well to a dental setting.

I also felt that the account of assessment, appraisal and evaluation in Chapter 5 was over simplistic and there can be much more interaction between these forms of assessment than the definitions given would suggest. For example, summative assessment can be used in a formative manner, and there are instances in the dental field where formative assessments are used in the process of continuous assessment, and for a small minority of students who are deemed to be falling below a required level or threshold the same methodologies can be adapted for summative assessment.

In summary, this book does achieve what its title suggests, and for those who find insufficient depth in the text provided, the book should direct the reader to the appropriate and more in-depth information. This makes it a very useful text to have on the shelves of all those health professionals who have an interest in education.

[BR823] P A Mossey

An introduction to clinical dental photography, 1999

Video: Running time 15 minutes Loan on application from: Mrs J. Ramsay. Postgraduate Community Dental Office, Level 7, Lauriston Building, Lauriston Place, Edinburgh EH3 9YW

In recent years, there has been a vast upsurge in the use of dental photography in practice. With the advent of digital cameras, teledentistry video-conferencing, intra-oral fibre optic and computer imaging, more and more dentists are realising the benefits of using photographs to communicate information to patients, technicians and other practitioners.

The video is restricted to describing the use of a single lens reflex camera (SLR) macro lens and ring flash using 35mm film.

The basic reasons for taking clinical dental photographs and descriptions of SLR type equipment are adequately covered by this video.

The voice over is rather monotonous and I would have liked to have seen some text highlight the most important points described.

I found the video useful in showing vocational trainees the use of an SLR camera, retractors and mirrors, and that the description of the technique was very sound; however, no mention was made of the cost of equipment or availability.

For anyone who requires an introduction to the basics of dental photography using SLR type equipment the video is available on loan from the above address.

[BR821] P Wander