Communicating About Core Skills With Your Preceptor
Core skills are an essential part of the NIMAA program. Because of this, NIMAA has worked to make it more straightforward to communicate with your preceptors on what skills you are able to practice in clinic versus what you still need to learn in your coursework first.
What to expect:
Students are responsible for completing their skills in Populi, Connect, Simtics, and during Skills Lab sessions in a timely manner. Every week, students should also be tracking their skills to update their preceptors. Students may use a notebook, a phone note, a spreadsheet, or any other method of tracking. NIMAA has provided a tracking sheet for you to use in your skills binder (within Populi).
Students may view their skills progress by going to their "Student" tab in their Populi profile and locating the skill on the right hand side under "Student Information".
Each skill will have a part "a" and a part "b". Part "a" is your skill's status and part "b" is your preceptor signing off on the skill. These will be delayed from your actual completion in clinic or the system because they are manually added on the back end, so please practice patience and advocate for yourself if something looks wrong.
The cohort is made up of 4 blocks. During each block, students and your externship team with receive an email mid block before skills lab and the week before AMA week with updates on your core skills progress. This will not only help students to stay on track with the timelines of when skills are due, but will also inform the preceptors, site facilitators, and Program Coordinators of which skills each student is approved to practice in clinic.
The Email:
Each block will increase in the amount of skills on the email provided to students and their externship team. This ensures that skills due in previous blocks are not forgotten. Below is an example of the block 4 email that is sent out with all the skills on it for our test user, John Teststudent.
Hello,
Please review the status of John Teststudent's skills. If they are marked complete, they may practice the skill in clinic. Otherwise, they will need to complete the skill in their online work.
- Due Week 1:
- CPR & AED: Complete
- Hand Hygiene: Complete
- Removing Contaminated Gloves: Complete
- Due Week 2:
- Obtain Adult Vital Signs: Complete
- Due Week 3:
- Patient History: Complete
- Using a Progress Note (Documenting a Chief Complaint):Incomplete
- Medication Reconciliation: Complete
- General Physical Exam Set-Up & Room Turn-Around: Complete
- Due Week 4:
- Obtain Pediatric Vital Signs: Complete
- Due Week 5:
- Chaperoning a Patient/Provider: Complete
- Patient Positioning: Complete
- Due Week 6:
- Assist with Pap Smear: Incomplete
- Assisting with STD/STI Tests: Complete
- Due Week 7:
- Electronic Health Records: Incomplete
- Due Week 9:
- Performing Vision Screening Tests: Incomplete
- Measuring Auditory Acuity: Incomplete
- Irrigate the Ear & Instill Ear Medication: Complete
- Due Week 10:
- Composing a Professional Email Message: Complete
- Composing an Electronic Patient Letter Using a Template: Complete
- Due Week 11:
- Perform Capillary Puncture & Hematology Testing: Incomplete
- Perform Venipuncture: Incomplete
- CLIA Waived Tests: Complete
- Due Week 12:
- Screening & Routing Telephone Calls: Complete
- Telephone Encounters: Complete
- Due Week 13:
- Obtaining a Peak Expiratory Flow Rate: Complete
- Perform ECG & Interpret: Complete
- Due Week 16:
- Care Coordination: Incomplete
- Behavior Changes: Complete
- Prior Authorizations/Pre-certifications: Complete
- Due Week 17:
- Referrals: Complete
- Managing Laboratory & Diagnostic Imaging Orders: Complete
- Relaying Results to Patients: Complete
- Due Week 18:
- Managing Documents: Complete
- Sending Results & Educational Material: Incomplete
- Scheduling a Patient Appointment Using an Electronic Scheduler: Complete
- Task Completion: Incomplete
- Due Week 19:
- Isolation Room PPE Protocol: Complete
- Cleaning & Disinfecting Instruments: Incomplete
- Wrapping & Labeling Instruments: Complete
- Disinfection & Sterilization in the Outpatient Setting: Incomplete
- Due Week 20:
- Donning Sterile Gloves: Incomplete
- Prepare for Minor Surgical Procedure: Incomplete
- Perform Suture Removal: Complete
- Due Week 21:
- Conflict Management: Complete
- Nonverbal Communication: Complete
- De-Escalation: Complete
- Administering Oral Drugs: Incomplete
- Administer Intradermal Injections: Complete
- Administer Subcutaneous Injections: Complete
- Administer Intramuscular Injections: Complete
- Due Week 24:
- Critical Thinking: Complete
- Difficult Conversations: Complete
- Due Week 25:
- Developing a Patient Education Plan: Complete
- Due Week 27:
- Panel Management: Complete
- Population Health: Complete
- Key Populations: Complete
Please reply to this message with any questions you have regarding skills.
-NIMAA
If you see anything that needs corrected on the email you are sent, please contact your instructor to clear up the confusion.
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