Open to all PT staff

How to Deliver A Quality Clinical Education Experience: A Field Guide For Clinical Educators

Clinical education (CE) is the component of entry level physical therapy curriculum that involves immersing students in actual clinic practice. It is necessary for developing the students’ knowledge, skills and behaviors that are essential for competence as professionals. CE in physical therapy education is unique in that up to 48% of contact hours are spent outside the classroom in clinical education experiences (CEEs). There are several stakeholders involved in creating these CEEs, including the Director of Clinical Education (DCE) from the education program, along with the Site Coordinator for Clinical Education (SCCE) and the Clinical Instructor(CI). However, much of the responsibility for carrying out the experience falls on the CI and they often experience tension balancing the demands of clinical practice with the need for student-centered clinical teaching. Despite having a set of criteria that are required for accreditation, there is room for huge variance in how education programs and clinical sites carry out the CEES.

This variance may not be the best approach given the high stakes nature for students, cost to stakeholders and increased demand for CE sites. Several studies have described how to possibly decrease this undesirable variance while also increasing the overall quality of the CEE. These studies have described the desirable characteristics of the CI and the clinical practice. Additionally, other key constructs, structures, processes and outcomes have been described for improving the quality in CEES.

Despite the availability of the CCIP from APTA, these variances in quality continue to exist in physical therapy CE. The purpose of this continuing education curriculum is to provide a course that addresses these concerns, along with ideas for implementing a consistent quality CE experience, based on the current best available evidence. This course targets the stakeholder most identified as the primary role and responsibility for carrying out a quality CE experience, the CI. 

Course Objectives/Learning Outcomes
At the conclusion of the course the participant will be able to:

1. Give examples of characteristics of a CI found in the categories of Interpersonal Skills/Communication, Professionalism, Instruction/Teaching, and Evaluation/Performance as described in the position paper by Recker-Hughes et al.¹
2. Evaluate their past performance as a Clinical Instructor or the performance of a Clinical Instructor they had while they were a student in order to recognize areas of strength and growth for future clinical educator experiences.^1,2
3. Compare various clinical reasoning tools that can be utilized as a clinical educator to facilitate metacognition in the entry-level DPT student
4. Reconcile the various responsibilities of the relevant stakeholders within a clinical education experience in order to maintain a student-centered learning environment.
5. Analyze the 5 key constructs as described by McCallum et al² in order to increase awareness of potential opportunities or barriers to a quality clinical education experience.
6. Describe the 3 main themes presented by Jette et al³ that must be considered for improving the quality of clinical education experiences

CEUs:

8 CEUs

Attire:

Comfortable business attire. Please consider dressing in layers as each person has a different comfort level when the air conditioning is on.

Cost:

• Olympic Sports & Spine Employees: $0

How to Register

• Olympic Sports & Spine (OSS) Employees
  Complete a Continuing Education Request form prior to registration. Once approved, return to this page and click the "Register" button and enter the discount code provided to use your continuing education funds.
  
  
• Non-OSS Employees
  Click the "Register" button and complete the form.