12 candidates for instructor training were selected at the first Neonatal Care Courses that were run in Bwindi in February 2022. They were supposed to be trained in November 2022 but the Ebola outbreak (in a different part of the country) put pay to NICHE International’s travel plans and we had to disappoint the group by postponing the training.
We have been doing some preliminary pre-course training with the candidates via a Zoom link. The Pocket Guide to Teaching for Clinical Instructors is the manual for the internationally taught and recognised Generic Instructor Course. Our educator, Jo Lawrence, arranged for some to be sent to Bwindi and the candidates have been busy reading about the “Set, Environment, Dialogue and Closure” structure of all teaching modalities.
Last week, the “Green group” of four each presented their prepared 5 minute lectures for Grace and I, their group mentors. The tropical rain was hammering down on Bwindi’s tin roof and the temperate wind was howling around my house in the UK. Only Cameroon’s weather sat quietly and listened to our four enthusiastic learners teaching us about hypoglycaemic fits, neonatal resuscitation and the risks of being born too early.
This is exciting and ground breaking work. The Advanced Life Support Group started to run “remotely enhanced” GICs during the pandemic in the UK but we are not aware of anyone else doing pre-course GIC training with overseas instructors. Our Cameroonian colleague, Grace, was instrumental in driving this forwards as she pointed out that the ethos of the GIC is new to many African healthcare workers and it takes time to get used to the GIC educational theories and practices.
