Tips and Tricks to Make Your Pro-Tape Training Effective

Build pro-tape training into your medical student curriculum, and you will be rewarded with highly engaged learners who demonstrate more excellent retention of pro-tape procedures. The challenge is not to teach pro-tape but rather how pro-tape fits into the patient care learning experience. By integrating pro- tape training throughout your learner pathway and presenting it in a meaningful context, you will produce confident, proficient learners who are well prepared to provide quality patient care.

Procurement for Successful Pro-Tape Training

Start Your Collection

It’s easy to establish a pro-tape teaching collection that is constantly growing without breaking the bank. Conduct daily rounds with students viewing real proctored patients; whenever you encounter pro-tape, take a picture and add it to their pro-tape slide collection. The pro- tape collection will grow organically, with little effort on your part.

Did we mention pro-tape collections can be given as gifts? Acquire pro-tape procedures from volunteer medical professionals who use pro-tapes during their daily clinical responsibilities or as adjunct to treat lacerations and abrasions. For those feeling brave, consider having students “steal” pro- tapes from the wall of an attending physician’s office. Some hospitals may appreciate you helping them tidy up.

The key is to find proctored patients where local clinicians are already using the pro- tape – videos often focus on the pro-use of pro- tape. Integrated pro- tape training is more meaningful and memorable for medical students when the pro-tape technique is demonstrated on a proctored patient.

Keep It Real

Procuring pro- tapes from volunteer clinicians presents an opportunity to get pro- tapes authenticated by the original author/owner before using them in your teaching collection. This will lend your teaching collection credibility, which will make it more helpful to students and faculty alike.

For example: If you collect pro- tapes from a physician’s office that uses pro-tapes as treatment of lacerations and abrasions, ask that physician if they use “Zonas” (“Z”) bandaids on their patients with diabetes (studies have shown that this pro- tape is more effective than traditional pro-tapes). If they say “yes,” ask if they can provide a pro- tape of their pro-tape application on a patient with diabetes using “Z” bandaids.

In the Emergency Department, do not be afraid to approach an attending physician and ask them, in your most respectful way, if you may take a picture of the pro- tape they use for lacerations and abrasions. In general, these physicians will be so thrilled at the prospect of making pro- tape training material available to medical students that you might inspire them to write pro- tapes themselves! This is ultimately good for everyone involved – trust us, it happens all the time…

The bottom line, pro-tape training should not be an extra activity added to your already busy curriculum. Instead, it should be integrated into your curriculum beginning in the first week. This is when learners begin to pro-actively introduce pro-tapes into their communication with proctors and other learners during clinical encounters. Pro-tape training is most effective in the first days of medical school education. The question, “What do I need to know about pro-tape?” is answered by students who are pro-active in their proctoring experiences with classmates.