Hi and welcome to my page!
My name is Ilana and I am from Vancouver, BC. I am passionate about Respiratory Therapy and Education. The purpose of this website is to explore breathlessness: everything about it!
Have you ever felt short of breath? That chest tightness that squeezes and won’t allow you to take a deep breath. You can’t breath in. You can’t breath out. If you are anything like me, you can’t help yourself but wonder WHY?!
I invite you to remember an instance when you felt breathlessness and the feelings associated with it. Were you in control? Could you focus on anything else? Were you scared?
If you are wondering what makes me qualified to speak about the topic, well thanks for asking! I have been working as a Registered Respiratory Therapist at Vancouver General Hospital (VGH) since 2016. I work in the intensive care unit, cardiac surgery intensive care unit, wards, emergency department and all departments of the hospital except for the operating room. I also have a Bachelor of Health Science and I am a Certified Respiratory Educator. For the last year I have been teaching student Respiratory Therapists in their last year of the program. If you are still asking yourself what a respiratory therapist is, the video below provides an excellent overview:
Here are a couple of pictures of me. One so that you can recognize me behind a mask and one without 😀
Feel free to leave me comments, questions and suggestions! I’d love to chat and learn from you 🙂
6 replies on “Welcome to Exploring: The What, The Why, The When, The How of Breathlessness”
Star: I am really excited to read your professional project on breathlessness. You created many varied students activities such as case study, group discussion (small and big group), Kahoot and provide your students an opportunity to communicate with nurse, dieticians and doctors. In your class, you have given students enough time to inquiry, discuss and share their thoughts reflect on the different cases. You also gave time to have an individual thinking. I love your patient-centered teaching method!
Wish: In my opinion, a variety of assessments are needed in your lessons.
Question: I am curious about the process how students collect patients’ information and provide specific care because it is too difficult to gauge how patient experienced a shortness of breath that it interferes with activities of daily living or function and what helps with shortness of breath?
Take care and stay safe!
Have a wonderful summer vacation and all the best!
Cloe
Hi Cloe!
Thank you for your comment 🙂 In your wish section you mention needing a variety of assessments. I totally agree! I tried to create a workshop where I can assess my students while discussing case studies. Here, the assesment is based on the questions that my students ask (me and the patients) and their thought process (their ability to use theory and approach the patient as a whole). In the simulated environment, I will be observing the students in terms of how they approach the situations and the types of questions that they ask. For example, the student needs to ask me about the patient’s past medical history, social history, work history, family history, about blood work results, any diagnostic tests, what their vitals signs are. As a result of all of this information, the students need to be able to determine what is going on with the patients. Eventually, the students will be supervised at the clinic by another respiratory therapist who will be able to provide feedback about their performance. I hope that this answers your questions!
I hope you get to enjoy your vacation also! 🙂
Iliana
Hello Iliana
Trust you are doing good.
Star: I am truly pleased to read your professional project on breathlessness. I was delighted to have seen this presentation in the class in our breakout rooms. The video explains the concept of breathlessness very clearly. Your style of taking up the lesson by asking questions helped me understand the concept very easily and smoothly.also the activities that you have taken up are wholesome and encourage the learners to look forward to learning new concepts. I had no clue about this topic but your class discussions and inquiry approach helped me get more curious to learn after the session and more so after reading your project.
Wish: I wish that we could actually participate in some of these activities when you took up the lessons. A practical demonstration of the real methodology and procedures could provide a better understanding of the subject matter. Regular feedback based on practical knowledge is imperative in a field like this.
Question: I wish to know what are the procedures that one can follow at home in case an emergency situation arises at home, also wanted to know how would the students collect the data and work according to the patients’requirement without much practice with life-saving equipment?
Take care, stay safe, and enjoy the summer!!
Hi Deepanjali!
Thank you for your comment, I really appreciate the feedback. You were such a good sport and thank you for participating in my lesson demonstration! Is there a specific emergency situation that you are thinking about that I can answer? If you would like to have a general tool of things that are “most likely” to happen, then I suggest watching this short video for how to perform a heimlich maneuver for when someone is choking!: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7CgtIgSyAiU
You bring a good point about how students would practice without having hands on experience. I should have explained that at TRU, in the first two years of the program, students learn theory and have laboratory practice with equipment. When they come into clinical year into the hospital, they are working on “putting it all together”. For example, students learn about different tools for delivering oxygen to a patient. However, in clinical year they have to determine what the best tool to use is for specific scenarios. The aim of my workshop is to help them think critically about situations, help them learn what information they need from the patient and make appropriate choices. Does that answer your question? Please let me know as I am happy to provide a better explanation!
Iliana
Hi Iliana,
I really enjoy reading your inquiry project about breathlessness. It is good to know what you did in medical domain. Your design and demonstration are clear, I really like the interesting video at the beginning which attract me most. I am totally agree that “inquiry approach to education” it was very applicable to healthcare. I am sure that you can be a good teacher by using this teaching method!
Wish: I wish you could do more real activities in classes and let the students understand the advantages of your teaching method.
Question: I would like to know how do you test students to learn correct and accurate treatment methods through your course?
Take care,
ZeYu Tian
Hi ZeYu,
Thank you for your comment and your feedback and thank you for participating in my lesson demonstration! To answer your question, in Phase 3 of my project I described the assessment portion of my classes. It is composed of 2 parts: multiple choice exams online which the students get graded on. And the second part is clinical practice: I spend time with my students observing, discussing and answering questions about real patients. I also get feedback from my student’s preceptors who spend every single shift with the students and see real patients. While seeing real patients, students have to do assessments, suggest treatment and assess response to treatment. The students have a log book that lists all the skills that they must be able to competently perform in order to graduate. Preceptors sign off these skills. If students do not get opportunities to practice some skills with real patients, I keep track of this. If the student’s clinical rotation is coming to an end without having the opportunity to practice certain skills, I discuss these skills with my students and bring in mannequins to simulate a real patient and assess the student’s knowledge and ability to perform.
Iliana