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P. Oza1, T. Najjar2, A. McCarthy3
1University of the Pacific, Stockton, CA, United States, 2Synaptic Physical Therapy Inc., Sunnyvale, CA, United States, 3Kaiser Permanente Neurologic Physical Therapy Residency, Redwood City, CA, United States
Background: Mentoring in residency programs has traditionally been ‘in-person’, with mentors observing the clinical practice of residents, providing feedback and questions to develop residents’ clinical reasoning. By March 2020, COVID-19 pandemic brought about an unprecedented situation in the world, requiring organizations to adapt and observe pandemic precautions while continuing to operate and offer services. Healthcare and education institutions focused on decreasing foot-traffic and implemented social-distancing practices to decrease the spread of the infection. It became important to quickly and collaboratively implement alternate mentoring delivery methods in residency programs. Despite limited literature on remote mentoring in physical therapy, tele-mentoring has the potential to provide impactful mentoring experiences to physical therapy residents and students while optimizing institutional resources developed for telehealth in clinical care.
Purpose: This retrospective case study assessed implementation of tele-mentoring for post-professional physical therapy residents during COVID-19 pandemic. The specific objectives included 1) assessment of effectiveness of tele-mentoring during tele-rehab and in-person patient visits, and 2) assessment of experiences and perceptions of residents and mentors during technology-based remote mentoring.
Methods: Needs assessment for implementing tele-mentoring as an alternate mentoring delivery method for two physical therapy residents was completed. One of the residents was at a rural location while the other was in an urban location with rapidly increasing numbers of COVID-19 infection. Effectiveness of tele-mentoring was assessed from the perspectives of both the residents and their individual mentors. Assessments included theme identification from the texts of - 1) reflection blogs completed by the residents, 2) self-studies completed by the mentors and 3) insights provided by the program director. Assessments were across two phases – 1) transition phase and 2) implementation phase of tele-mentoring. Additionally, assessments also compared mentoring during ‘telehealth visits’ and ‘in-person visits’ with the patients. Perceptions of debriefing sessions via remote mentoring were collected informally during and formally after graduation for formative and summative assessments.
Results: Preliminary data assessment indicates that residents and mentors experienced initial anxiety for continued patient care and residency mentoring but willingness to adapt, during the transition phase. After the first tele-mentoring session, there was a sense of gratitude for the opportunities provided by technology to develop creative therapeutic and learning activities. Identified operational needs were streamlined after first session for consistency during the implementation session. Post- implementation assessments showed that tele-mentoring was equally effective for tele-rehab and in-person patient visits. Tele-mentoring continued to enhance clinical training and patient care. Our clinical mentors and residents perceived tele-mentoring to be similarly effective as in-person mentoring.
Conclusion(s): Our preliminary results indicate that tele-mentoring was effective for physical therapy residents during COVID-19 pandemic. It demonstrated adaptability of residency program education in changing and uncertain times.
Implications: Tele-mentoring has potential to optimize organization resources for patient care and training clinicians. Retention of physical therapists will be improved due to improved access to professional development opportunities for all therapists, including those in distant or rural location and decreased travel costs. Given the changed clinical training opportunities brought about by COVID-19 pandemic, new physical therapy graduates will especially benefit with tele-mentoring.
Funding, acknowledgements: No funding acknowledgements. This project of process analysis was not funded.
Keywords: Residency education, Telehealth, Mentoring
Topic: Education: clinical
Did this work require ethics approval? No
Institution: N/A
Committee: N/A
Reason: Describes retrospective process analysis and narrative review of an innovative adaption to meet the changing needs of COVID-19 pandemic.
All authors, affiliations and abstracts have been published as submitted.
