Claire Staniland (senior lecturer in physiotherapy) recently ran an evening CPD event, which involved over 150 attendees participating online via Zoom. The key topic for the evening was Covid-19. Claire has kindly been talking to us about the event.
What motivated you to run the event?
The event was organised as additional learning during the time when students were undertaking online learning. Students had asked whether they would be learning about Covid-19 during my mid-module review of clinical reasoning in physiotherapy (Pre-Reg MSc module). I arranged the event to give them something current and that is also not currently part of the curriculum. I sought support from my clinical colleagues so that I could gain a very real and informed view. Jess Brinkley is a lecturer practitioner at Hallam and was pulled from Hallam to the front line at the start of the pandemic. She works in intensive care at the Northern General. Jess has suffered with Covid-19 herself and still experiences fatigue. I asked Jess to talk to us about what is known about the pathophysiology of Covid-19 and the symptoms and management. I also approached my sister Gemma Hayden who is a speech and language therapist at Rotherham Foundation Trust. She also leads stroke services and has a cross-county role. Gemma agreed to talk about how they have implemented remote rehab, which is using technology to video call/share videos with patients and continue rehab at home. I also know some healthcare professionals – Amanda Story, Tony Story and Jayne Roscamp – who had recovered or were still suffering from Covid-19 and I asked them to share their experiences.
Did organising the event present any challenges?
The first challenge was finding people to agree to give up their time to prepare and deliver a presentation. This was relatively easy as they were keen to help. Then I needed to find a date, which was a little more challenging. I wanted to do it while the level 6 BSc students were still engaged and had IT access for comms. Jess was extremely busy working shifts and suffering from fatigue, so we worked around her schedule to find the earliest date. July 7th. This was only around 3 weeks from the initial idea to delivery. Gemma, Tony, Amanda, and Jayne were all luckily free.
Organising the event online also meant doing things a little differently. I used Eventbrite to organise and it worked well for comms. I sent a Padlet with various themes and asked attendees to post questions they would like to ask each speaker. This gave speakers time to prepare and add anything to their presentations. I also used Eventbrite to send updates as the session approached and confirmed timings and Zoom information.
Using Zoom, I’ll add, proved great for the event. Our Physio Student Society regularly arrange evening lectures with Zoom, whilst the speakers felt Zoom made it more accessible for them to take part, especially those with childcare commitments as they didn’t need to leave home. I’ll be passing this advice on to next year’s reps. And I’d also like to thank Lucy Stephens and Aimee France for their help in monitoring the chat.
Can you pick one or two highlights from the event?
I was particularly interested in the information about the pathophysiology and how different people react to the virus. Jess also talked about some of the interventions that help, such as proning (turning patients on their tummy whilst they are unconscious and ventilated).
Gemma was also enthusiastic about a positive change in practice that will come because of the pandemic: greater efficiency.
Finally, it was really emotive listening to how the patient experts had suffered, especially Jayne who is relatively young and was previously fit and well. She told us how she’d suffered for over 3 months and there were even times when she had struggled to climb the stairs.
A few examples of feedback from the attendees . . .
“Thank you to all the speakers and for the people who had Covid-19 and provided their story! Thank you again Claire for organising this event – I would like to see more events like this with speakers! I thoroughly enjoyed this and took a lot from this session.”
“Great level of detail and questions answered comprehensively. Thanks, great event.”
“Thank you really much for the speakers especially for Jayne who was confirmed positive and still suffering from the virus. I know her personally in previous placements and she has been a knowledgeable and supportive colleague. I hope she’s feeling better, and everyone should really be careful. The whole webinar has been useful for me as a part of the community and as a physio. Thank you very much again to all the speakers and people who organised the webinar!!!”
“Thank you very much for providing a really informative webinar on such a current topic. It was really interesting hearing different perspectives of the pandemic from patients to practising professionals. This has helped provide greater insight into the current situation and will be really useful to reflect on in the future.”
