Post-Graduate Programme in Organ Donation : (ODISSeA UMM)
Methodology
The training programme will engage learners at a more personal level by addressing their expectations and needs. Participants will be encouraged to immerse themselves in the learning situation, in order to acquire a better understanding of the new knowledge and retain the information for a longer time. To be truly effective, the educational programme will employ the whole learning cycle, from goal setting, to experimenting and observing, to reviewing, and finally action planning, allowing individuals to learn new skills, new attitudes or even entirely new ways of thinking. Efficient hands-on learning activities will allow learners to put in practice the new concepts.
A MULTI-LEVEL BLENDED LEARNING PROGRAM will be provided, on three levels of difficulty:
The core postgraduate programme components are designed following the threelevel approach as seen below:
There will be three cross-curricular components to be carried out in parallel or at the end of the core PCs.
They are as follows:
Cross-curricular Component 1 (CC1) includes: On-the-Job Improvement Projects It will transform learner’s everyday work to an environment of lifelong learning and will help its beneficiaries to further build their knowledge and strengthen their ability to respond to situations that require efficient problem-solving. In this regard postgraduate programme learners will be requested to identify an organ donation related practice that can be improved in their clinical environment through the newly acquired competences and to develop in small working groups one on-the-jobimprovement-project.
Cross-curricular Component 2 (CC2) includes: Awareness Events (Bilingual English/local language). Trainers together with students of each university will organize at least ONE informative/awareness event in their university/region/country with at least 50 attendees to ensure the visibility of the new programme and boost interest. Guidance has been provided during the Train the Trainers programme and awareness event proposal have been developed together with the local trainers to be.
Cross-curricular Component 3 (CC3) includes: International Assessment Seminars There will be two International Assessment Seminars each of 5 days. EU experts and local trainers will evaluate learners’ competences acquired throughout the learning programme. The 280 participants will be divided in 2 groups of 140 learners. Each international seminar will target 140 participants.
This structure will permit a major flexibility for participants and will reduce travel and accommodation expenses. Moreover, to ensure the visibility of the new programme and boost interest informative events will be organized in each university.
The learning methodology will boost networking, best practice exchange and will promote great interactivity in the learning environment created.
To summarize the postgraduate programme will include the following:
A. 4 MOTION GRAPHICS (microlearning capsules) (1 ECTS=25 study hours) on organ donation, living and deceased
B. 8 WEBINARS (2 ECTS*=50 study hours)
1. Ethics, legislation, situation in the country, organ donation programmes, types of donors
2. Donor detection
3. Brain Death diagnosis
4. Donor management
5. Family approach
6. Organ recovery, preservation and allocation
7. Donation after circulatory death
8. Living donation
C. SELF-STUDY (13 ECTS): 8 engaging self-study online contents (12 ECTS=300 study hours) where learners will deepen and broaden their knowledge on
1. Ethics, legislation, situation in the country, organ donation programmes, types of donors
2. Donor detection
3. Brain Death diagnosis
4. Donor management
5. Family approach
6. Organ recovery, preservation and allocation
7. Donation after circulatory death
8. Living donation
Each topic will develop a core structure with factual information based on written materials and audio-visual support and will promote a proactive learning. Selfassessing activities with practical applicability will be developed, in order to enable learners to demonstrate their ability to work independently on selected topics; demonstrate the ability for conceptual thinking and original thought; demonstrate systematic application of the knowledge acquired to a selected topic; demonstrate the ability to acquire, synthesize and use data from different sources. The advantages of e-learning are:
✓ Flexibility
✓ Access anytime and from anywhere
✓ Low costs
✓ Continuous building of knowledge and skills
✓ Ongoing monitoring and evaluation
D. 5 LOCAL SEMINARS IN ORGAN DONATION (5 ECTS = 125 study hours)
The local trainers of each university will organize a total of 5 local seminars and attendance will be compulsory. It will include the following topics:
➢ Ethics, legislation, organ donation and transplantation system in the country, current situation, organ donation programmes, types of donors
➢ Donor Detection and Brain Death Diagnosis in Organ Donation after Brain Death
➢ Breaking Bad News and Family Approach in Deceased Organ Donation
➢ Management and Organ Viability in Organ Donors after Brain Death & Organ Recovery, Preservation and Allocation Criteria in deceased donors
➢ Living donor evaluation
The local seminars will last 1 day each and the contents may be provided through different modalities:
➢ Knowledge recalling sessions
➢ Interactive lectures
➢ Cases Studies
➢ Workshops and Simulations
Local seminars will reinforce the knowledge through learning by doing methodology and will be designed to put into practice the contents acquired previously, therefore, will facilitate the switch from the theoretical knowledge to practice. The local seminars will help learners achieve further knowledge in donation and improve their core competences, for better clinical performance and patient outcome.
E. ON-THE-JOB IMPROVEMENT PROJECTS (5 ECTS=125 study hours)
In order to ensure that learning is transferred into practice, postgraduate programme students will be requested to develop in small groups one on-thejob-improvement-project. These projects will give students the opportunity to identify an organ donation related practice that can be improved in their clinical environment through the newly acquired knowledge, skills and behaviours.
The topics of such projects have been identified and agreed together with their local trainers in order to ensure that the projects tackle local realities and clinical gaps. A total of five topics have been shortlisted, prioritized and enlisted below, according to their importance in the SEA partner countries.
In this way what students learn in the academic environment will be transferred to practice and evaluated/measured. The projects will illustrate the need (and how this need was identified), will formulate clear objectives, followed by the actions proposed and undertaken to minimize the gaps identified, and last but not least the initial/foreseen results as well as conclusions and recommendations.
The topics for the on-the-job improvement projects are the following:
1. Brain death donor potentiality
Objective: Identify and asses the hospital brain death donor potentiality at the critical care units and compare the potentiality against international references.
Materials and Methods: - Death patients from Intensive care units and emergency department from the hospital selected - Medical records review of all death patients focuses on patients with severe neurological damage (ICD-COD 10) - 6 months retrospective review - Definition of the hospital situation (number of beds, number total hospital deaths, number of admissions, Hospital services, human resources, etc.), Organ Donation Diagnosis Survey (ODDS)
2. Hospital staff attitude in organ donation
Objective: Identify and asses the attitude and knowledge about organ donation from the hospital staff
Materials and Methods: - Attitude and knowledge in organ donation survey (anonymous) - Targeted hospital services: ICU, ER, OR - Awareness event performed at the targeted services 21 - Post- awareness event survey
3. Prospective possible donor identification
Objective: Identify on daily basis the possible donors from ICU
Materials and Methods: - Protocol definition: Possible donors’ proactive identification, monitor and referral. - Deceased Alert system template (Excel form) - Daily monitoring of possible donors and registry at the template - 5 months prospective data collection, identification of the main barriers for donor conversion rate.
4. Death by neurological criteria monitoring
Objective: Identify the probable and confirmed brain death cases during the study period and the main hospital barriers for the diagnosis.
Materials and Methods: - Identification of the brain death diagnosed between January to June 2018 in ICU. - Protocol definition: Hospital brain death diagnosis protocol - Monthly record cases of probable and confirm brain death. Record of the causes why a probable brain death doesn’t progress to confirmed brain death. - 5 months prospective data collection, identification of the main barriers for brain death diagnosis (lack of human resources, lack of equipment, etc.)
5. Project Title: Living donor satisfaction survey
Objective: To evaluate the living donor´s satisfaction and impact of the donation considering quality of life aspects, perception and acceptance of donation process and psychological well-being.
Materials and Methods: - 6 months retrospective data collection - Kidney transplant patient from living donors - Satisfaction survey 22
F. AWARENESS EVENTS (1ECTS=25 study hours) (Bilingual English/local language).
Trainers and learners of each university will need to organize at least ONE informative/awareness event in their university/region with at least 50 attendees to ensure the visibility of the new programme and boost interest.
G. 2 FACE-TO-FACE INTERNATIONAL ASSESSMENT SEMINARS (4 ECTS=100 study hours), each of 5 days.
The 280 participants will be divided in 2 groups of 140 learners. Each international seminar will target 140 participants. EU experts and SEA local trainers will evaluate students’ competences through practical activities.
It will consolidate and complement the acquired competences e on organ donation and allow continuous evaluation through the different sessions.
They will include:
➢ Welcome+ methodology explanation
➢ Assessment of knowledge on organ donation through different hands-on sessions and practical activities on both: Living donor evaluation & Organ donation from deceased donors. Assessment tools will be developed, agreed on and provided to experts prior to the seminar.
REQUIREMENTS TO ENROL THE PROGRAM
We will select the beneficiaries of the postgraduate programme according to the selection criteria given below and request the following the documents for enrolment: application form, letter of commitment and letter of motivation.
Participants will be selected considering gender equity, equitable geographical representation and inclusion of ethnic, minorities and vulnerable groups.
They need to be professionals about to join or involved in:
✓ Intensive care unit (ICU)
✓ Emergency ward
✓ Post-operative care
✓ Neurocritical care
✓ Anaesthesiology
✓ Organ Donor Coordination
✓ Transplant surgeons
