Student group’s challenge

“Students worked on the problem that patients who receive a stoma in the hospital go home and then have to deal with the new stoma. […] The nurse specialist in the hospital said that they give patients as much information as possible and that patients go home, but always come back. So, that the patients are not well taken care of at home. […] The problem was about dealing with a new stoma. So, it was a kind of transfer problem or information problem between the hospital and home. […] The students wanted to do something with an app to provide information to patients and talked with a home care about this. However, the home care did not recognize this problem at all, so the students felt that they could not continue. How did the students react? The students were completely stuck. It stopped completely. […] That was a dead end because that stoma care is completely developed in terms of materials. So, very skin-friendly, not leaking, stomas already exist. So, then the students thought that that was not interesting anymore, so much had already been done. […] Students thought that they (students) had a very relevant problem identified, until they (students) came into contact with home care that did not recognize the problem. Then, the students could not go any further because they (students) thought that home care would be a good stakeholder. […] In the end, students also changed stakeholders. They changed to a nurse from the stoma association, and this person recognized the problem. […] The new stakeholder told the students that their problem fitted perfectly with a development that they (stoma association) are working on at a national level. The stoma association was also working on something with an app for patients. However, their solution was much bigger than students’ solution. So, this group continued to develop their solution within the framework of the stoma association. This gave students wings because it made the acceptance and impact much clearer. […] The students are very flexible. The students immediately divided up tasks in their groups and did a Belbin test. This test gives everyone information about their expertise and talent. […] I can remember from last year that students were immediately enthusiastic and started dividing tasks. […] The students had an idea and that was an app. However, an app is not very innovative, but, in this case, it is because it matches the information patients need” [T10 stoma].

Teaching activities

“I have sent the students to the stoma association. But in any case, I also said that there are more sources of information. I personally found it very interesting that home care did not recognize the problem, and of course there are also more home care organizations. […] The students felt like being stuck, and thought they had to find another healthcare problem. But then I said ‘No because you have a nice problem. It does not mean that the problem suddenly no longer exists because it is not recognized somewhere else’. […] I tried to stimulate the students to stay with their problem, even if it is not easy or something like that. […] I very much encourage the students to have conversations and go out into the field. And further, there has to be a report, so I sometimes ask about the planning, like ‘how are you in terms of planning and are you able to keep up?’. And if the students have some text for a paragraph or something like that, they can send it and I will give feedback on it” [T10 stoma].