PREPARING TODAY’S CLINICAL INSTRUCTORS FOR TOMORROW’S STUDENT PHYSIOTHERAPISTS: THE ACADEMIA CHALLENGE

A. Chaudry¹, J. Karges-Brown², J. Audette³

¹Langston University, School of Physical Therapy, Langston, Oklahoma, United States, ²University of South Dakota, Department of Physical Therapy, Vermillion, South Dakota, United States, ³University of New England, Westbrook College of Health Professions, DPT Program, Portland, ME 04103, United States

Background: Physiotherapist education typically includes on-campus didactic teaching by academic faculty and clinical experiential learning of campus at varied physiotherapy facilities under direction and supervision of physiotherapist clinicians serving as clinical instructors (CIs). Academic faculty consistently succumb to rigid adherence to annual professional development requirements to remain current as part of maintaining faculty status; and though CIs come from diverse academic backgrounds and varied levels of clinical experiences, no such universal professional development requirement exists for CIs.

Purpose: The need for academic physiotherapist programs to make certain that affiliating CIs exhibited consistency in student experiential teaching and are kept abreast of current developments in physiotherapy knowledge/skills related to providing quality clinical instruction to interning students, led two physiotherapist education programs in USA to explore affordable avenues to train their affiliating CIs in universally accepted clinical instruction strategies that ensured uniformity in student clinical training and quality clinical instruction for the academic program and provided national recognition to clinical instructors at reasonable cost to create a WIN-WIN scenario.

Methods: Two physiotherapist education programs in USA opted to send their faculty supervising the clinical education component of the physiotherapist curriculum, the Directors of Clinical Education (DCE) to become credentialed trainers as certified by the American Physical Therapy Association (APTA), USA’s national physiotherapy association. Both DCEs first attended a national two-day physiotherapy CI-credentialing training (Course) to become credentialed clinical instructors later followed by an additional two-day Trainer Workshop to become nationally CI-credentialed Trainers. As APTA CI-credentialed Trainers, both program DCEs collaborated to offer a CI credentialing course at cost in/near their respective home states to their affiliating clinical faculty on a geographic rotation between the two campuses located in different states. Class size was limited to 20/APTA recommendation. Each DCE recruited physiotherapy clinical faculty first and then clinical faculty from other related disciplines like occupational therapy & speech pathology to create an interprofessional teaching-learning experience. At course conclusion, each CI attendee completed an extensive course evaluation and submitted directly to APTA. Results were analyzed by APTA, and outcome summary was sent to each trainer.

Results: CI satisfaction over several years with national CI credentialing workshop offered at/near home at least annually on rotation by both academic Program DCE trainers was “high” as noted in objective course instructor teaching ratings and subjective written comments on course evaluations for the 2-day CI credentialing workshop.

Conclusions: Enabling CIs to attend a national APTA Course close to home to minimize travel expenses and loss of clinical productivity time; and offering Course at cost taught by local trainers familiar with the CI’s clinical work environment but who were APTA Credentialed Trainers created the “WIN” for the attending CIs. The consistently rising pool of credentialed CIs for future students because of the affordable collaborative course offering created the “WIN” for both academic programs.

Implications: The concept of an academic program credentialing their CIs through a uniform national program can be adopted with modification by any physiotherapist education program willing to invest in training their CIs for the benefit of their future students.

Funding acknowledgements: Funding not required.

Keywords:
Clinical Instructor
Training
Win-Win

Topics:
Education: continuing professional development
Education: clinical
Education

Did this work require ethics approval? No

Reason: The review of program information is considered a quality assessment measure to ensure meeting accreditation needs. Thus, IRB approval is not needed.