ESTRO 2024 - Abstract Book

S5854

RTT - Education, training, advanced practice and role developments

ESTRO 2024

3205

Digital Poster

First qualitative evaluation of the Simulated Linac Control Area for Radiation Therapy

Mike C Kirby, Chris Corcoran, Kerrie-Anne Calder

University of Liverpool, Radiotherapy, Liverpool, United Kingdom

Purpose/Objective:

Simulated techniques and environments are becoming increasingly used in Radiation Therapy teaching and training programs – for alleviating time and resource pressures in busy clinical departments in the teaching and training of pre-registration radiation therapists (therapeutic radiographers). Our simulation facilities are based in our university environment, to complement the direct training in our clinical facilities. Our simulation suite and practices are proving to be highly effective [1], giving students greater time and space in a safe, non-clinical arena using similar or identical hardware and software to that in our cancer centres. To extend our facilities still further, we have developed a Simulated Linac Control Area (SLCA) [2] to complement students’ training in safe and effective patient communication and set-up, on-treatment team working and checking, control area practices and procedures. It is a part of our Simulation Centre, a facility which is used regularly each semester, for all five cohorts of our 3-year UG and 2-year PG pre-registration training programmes in Therapeutic Radiography and Oncology. The design and construction of the SLCA has been reported on, together with initial feedback on the student experience – all of which was positive [2]. Since then, the construction has been completed with a fully operational door interlock system, as used in our clinical cancer centres, and further radiation warning lights. A more extensive, qualitative evaluation has been undertaken with our 2nd year UG students and is here reported.

Material/Methods:

During one of the regular Simulation weeks programmed into our teaching, 2nd year UG pre-registration students were invited to complete a brief qualitative evaluation of the session using the SLCA. Completing the forms was entirely voluntary and part of the regular module evaluation. Open-ended questions were used and all responses were fully anonymous. No personal data was requested, recorded or stored in any way. The students were asked whether (a) they found the session useful, (b) what was the most useful element; (c) whether they found the (SLCA) easy to understand and use; (d) what could be done to improve the session delivery and (e) what equipment they would like added to the SLCA.

Results:

Twenty-Eight students completed the questionnaire; 24/28 (> 85%) finding the session useful. The remaining four replied ‘no’, since they had already started switch-on procedures within their clinical placements. Twenty-three