EDUCATORS’ PERCEPTION ON THEIR ROLE ASA CLINICALPRECEPTORWITHIN THE SRI LANKANHEALTHCARE EDUCATION SYSTEM

A.I. Karunaratne¹, T. Maheepala¹, Z. De Silva¹, S. Maddumage¹, S. Raphiel¹

¹International Institute of Health Sciences, Physiotherapy, Welisara, Sri Lanka

Background: There are culturally defined duties and responsibilities that are expected from an educator. The role of an educator mainly lies within academic performance and the role of a preceptor is confined to the clinical performance. Preceptorship educates and guides healthcare students in the clinical setting allowing them to interact with a professional team and to be exposed to the reality of a healthcare system. Within the Sri Lankan setting, the ability of preceptors to supervise students effectively is limited by time and resources as they are often expected to play dual roles as educators and preceptors. Similarly, in some instances the educator will have to play the role of a preceptor. Even though at the moment, there seems to be clear boundaries between the two roles, both roles should have a common outcome: which is better patient care and a skilled/ confident workforce.

Purpose: Thus, the aim of this study was to describe educators’ perception of their role as preceptors within private healthcare education system. To ultimately transition students to develop their confidence and skills as an autonomous professional, irrespective of the labeled trainer (educator or preceptor).

Methods: A qualitative research was done on educators who were working within the private education setting. Data collection was done through individual interviews. Data was collected until data saturation was reached which made a sample of 20 (11 physiotherapy educators and 8 nursing educators) and was analyzed thematically with the help of transcribed data.

Results: 5 themes were identified: (1) Educators role within the clinical setting, (2) Relationship betweeen the two role, (3) Role identification to suit the individual need, (4) Common evaluation systems, (5) Improving clinical standards, (6) Overcoming barriers with limited resources. The commonly identified challenge within the clinical setting was application of theory knowledge into practise: “we as educators teach them the concept, students should be able to apply that into practice with their use of clinical reasoning”. Use of simulation labs to minimize this gap was suggested. Many stated the separation of the two roles is necessary but agreed that both roles should feed into each other. Eg: “Rather than the educator just lecturing on a disease condition, this could be related to an interactive/ real time scenario even within the classroom”. Concepts such as reflections, developing expertise and reasoning need to done as a combined effort of both the educator and the preceptor.

Conclusions: Educators had a positive perception on preceptorship and had a clear goal in their role as educators but agreed that this was a joint venture between an educator and a preceptor. Inadequate pedagogical training and infrastructure in the healthcare system . Thus, implementing preceptorship training programs would be beneficial to both preceptors and preceptees in the successful transition of students to healthcare professionals.

Implications: A questionnaire can be developed based on the information that was collected qualitatively and could be used on a larger sample, in order to generalize the research findings to a wider population. Both educators and preceptors need to be briefed on role development.

Funding acknowledgements: No funding taken.

Keywords:
Preceptorship
Educator
Perception

Topics:
Education: methods of teaching & learning
Education: clinical
Education

Did this work require ethics approval? Yes

Institution: International Institute of Health Sciences

Committee: BioInquirer Ethics Review Committee

Ethics number: 2022/ERC 132