RATIONALEThe Health Sector is very important and has a huge impact on both society and economic environments, in the European Union it employs almost 10% of the total workforce and corresponds to almost 9% of the gross domestic product (GDP).Higher education system provides students of medicine with high standards of cognitive and practical abilities in the field, but transversal skills are becoming also a crucial prerequisite for enhanced performance in health care. The need to deal with intercultural societies, the increasing attention to patient-oriented services, efforts in ensuring a more transparent interaction with patients, require additional training and development of the Medical staff transversal skills. Good clinical communication skills correlate with improved health care outcomes and this is for obvious reasons even more important in Paediatrics.OBJECTIVESThe project aims to identify the most important soft skills for the field of pediatrics, match them with the best teaching methods and strategies, and elaborate guidelines and materials for training the trainers to use these methods and develop future pediatricians soft skills. The project intends to find new solutions to improve communication between children/families and paediatricians through novel, interactive, learner-centered learning materials that will be employed in the building of such skills in pre-service students and residents in paediatrics. Such needs may refer to implementation of ludic activities – interaction with children through games, story telling designed to distract, soothe, and help kids surmount fear of the doctor and deal with pain, stress and anxiety associated with hospital stays while ensuring professionalism and safety.RESULTSThe project will improve the quality and relevance of higher education, by introducing in curricula addressed to pediatricians, specific contents aimed at developing their soft skills to better communicate and interact with children and their families.The project will reinforce the capacity of future and present pediatricians to implement of ludic activities – interaction with children through games, story telling designed to distract, soothe, and help kids surmount fear of the doctor and deal with pain, stress and anxiety associated with hospital stays while ensuring professionalism and safety.The project will qualify trainers in higher education and reach an optimization of pediatric education to better meet the specific current and future needs of infants, children and teenagers, medical employers and other stakeholders.The project will provide future and professional pediatricians with a better understanding of the needs of children and their families as health care consumers, in terms of their demand of good communication skills, patience, time-organization and other such specific skills the project will identify and address, with communication being key factor, likely to enhance understanding and patient and parent adherence to therapy.The project will experiment the development of pediatricians soft-skills through the use of emerging technology-based methods, tools and contents such as: podcasts, video tutorials on team-based learning, problem-solving, scenario-based learning, gamification (simulation games).METHODOLOGYIn order to achieve these results the project will develop and test 3 Intellectual Outputs involving 50 professors/trainers in pediatrics education and 150 among students in pediatrics and pediatriciansThe three intellectual outputs are:Publication on pediatrics soft skills needsThe publication will present the results of a research activity aimed at analysing the expectations of the three main actors of the pediatric health services: doctors, pediatric patients and their parents.Teaching package for trainersThe teaching package will be developed in order to address the needs identified by Intellectual Output 1 and it will contain teaching resources for each identified soft skill and will be made available on the project portal. Content will be organized in modules, and learning Units. Learning package for pediatriciansThe Learning package will assist pediatric students in acquiring and developing the necessary soft skills to enhance the quality and appropriateness of pediatric health services according to the needs and expectations of patients and of their parents.
Context The quality of paediatric services depends on the physicians’ job specific skills involving knowledge and practical abilities (hard skills) and also a series of soft transversal, personality-linked, intellectual skills and meta-skills (i.e. soft skills). Soft skills are likely to make the difference between the good and excellent pediatric health services, creating an error free, safer, and supportive environment for the pediatric patients and parents. Objective The project aims to identify the most important soft skills in the field of pediatrics, match them with the best teaching methods and strategies, and elaborate guidelines and materials for training the pediatricians’ trainers. Participating organisations The Softis-Pedproject involved: - 6 contractual partners including training agencies, universities, and public institutions - 62 lecturers from 11 different universities - 187 residents working in the pediatrics sector - 31 students from 6 different universities - 26 associated partners including associations, no profit organisations, non-governmental organization, public bodies, universities, research institutes, companies. The target groups were directly involved in the carrying out of the project activities. The Softis-Ped project had a relevant impact on their needs as, starting from survey directly involving them, it produced training contents and tools to improve the soft-skills they use in their day life activities. Activity 1) Publication on Pediatrics Soft Skills Needs The project partners cooperate for the creation of a publication presenting the results of a research activity aimed at analysing the needs and expectations of the three main actors of pediatric health services: pediatricians, pediatric students, pediatric patients and their parents. Activity 2) Training Package for Pediatricians Professors and Trainers The project partners created a training package addressed to lecturers and trainers in the field of paediatrics on how to assist pediatric undergraduate and resident students in developing and consolidating their soft skills for improving the quality of pediatric services. The training package has been developed in order to address the needs described in the phase 1 and it contains teaching resources for each identified soft skill and is available on the project portal. The online training courses offers the access to 5 modules: - Communication with Children - Communicating with Parents - Communication in a Multicultural Environment - Communicating with Peers - Communicating with Health Care Staff Activity 3) Joint Staff Training Event The joint staff training event took place in Tirgu Mures (RO) for 7 days. Through the training, lecturers involved in paediatric education, acquired knowledge, skills and competence to make full use of the project results in order to be able to: - Transfer soft skills to their students through: emerging technology-based methods, tools and contents such as: podcasts, video tutorials on team-based learning, problem-solving, gamification, etc. - Foster and optimisation of paediatric education to better meet the specific current and future needs of infants, children and teenagers, medical employers and other stakeholders. Activity 4) – Training Package for Paediatricians The project developed a training package addressed to students, residents, medical practitioners in paediatrics on how to learn, develop and consolidate their soft skills for improving the quality of paediatric services. The training package has been developed in order to address the needs identified during the phase 1 and with reference to the teaching concepts developed in the phase 2. The activity also included the creation of a Multilanguage dictionary of medical terms contains simple definitions for diseases, instruments, medicines, and other health-related items in Arabic, Chinese, English, Italian, German, Romanian, Hungarian and Spanish. Activity 5 - Multiplier events The project partners organized events addressed to lecturers, professors, students and paediatric practitioners using non formal education tools aiming at disseminating, promote and foster the use of the project results.. Impact As far as the impact of the project is concerned, Softis-Ped project provided lecturers, professors, students and paediatric practitioners with the possibility to improve and further develop their soft-skills in order to better cooperate with their colleagues and offer an excellent service to patients and their relatives.