For the past few months we as students have been exposed to a number of different medical facilities and institutions as part of our education. This is necessary to allow for a diverse exposure to as many different conditions as possible. From working with patients in the ICU, to treating and conditioning athletes, the scope of a physiotherapist is as diverse as the conditions themselves.
Because we are students, unqualified and inexperienced, we come across many conditions for the first time. This is to be expected. It creates the perfect opportunity and circumstances to broaden our skills and learn new treatment techniques to empower ourselves to be the best physiotherapist we can be.
Much can be said about the different placements in regards to their available facilities and resources. Some placements really struggle to cope with the amount of patients and the lack of proper equipment. That is not what I’m writing about however. No, today I’m writing about the clinicians at these various placements.
It is important to note that all placements differ, and is run by different individuals. Not one is the same as the next. It is also important to note that this is totally my own thoughts and what I experienced at the various placements.
If I were to be a clinician in a facility where students came to learn, I would see myself as the teacher. Let’s take the ICU for example: it is crazy to expect a student to walk into the ICU and be able to treat all patients safely and effectively. As the clinician I would have to lead the student in some instances, teach them about new or other ways to do assessments and treatments, and follow up on them to see if they improve at all – the patients they work with are my responsibility after all.
That brings me to my statement today: you get good clinicians, great clinicians, and you get bad clinicians. A bad clinician is someone that lets the student go and not worry or follow-up on them again. This has happened to me a few times. I have had a situation where I walked into the clinician’s office to ask for advice and help, and the clinician was sitting at his desk playing video-games on his phone!
How are we as students supposed to learn and improve ourselves if there is no way to know if what we are doing is correct? If there is no follow-up from the clinician from time to time, we can actually be busy with malpractice without even knowing it.
One could say that is the job of our weekly supervisor, however that is not enough. The clinician is responsible for the students and patients under their care – to ensure that the student is safe and effective with the patient, and that the student is actually learning.
There is no place for a clinician to be so carefree to be playing games while the student is seeing the patient. That is unsafe practice.
***A work in progress***
3 thoughts on “Physio where are you?”
Hi Theron.
Reading your piece almost makes me angry, as I can very much relate to much of what you said. I’ve had great clinicians who go out of their way to guide you and help you, while others sits in their office and leave you by yourself or don’t care who you see or how you treat your patients.
I think it is therefore important that someone writes about this topic as many student will feel the same. However, there are a few things you can add to your piece that will make your case even stronger (I understand that you are not done with you writing yet).
So firstly, I think when you do add in your literature, look at what impact good guidance from clinicians do for students vs bad or no guidance from clinicians. This will allow the reader to understand the importance of guidance to students.
Also look at the options students have in a scenario where there is no guidance for them. What can or should they do.
Lastly, also maybe look at the HPCSA guidelines to see if they give any info with regards to clinicians giving their best in patient care.
Lastly, I there are a few grammar errors that you can fix that will make reading your piece slightly easier.
Thank you for your piece
Hi Theron.
Thank you for sharing this piece with us. I can relate with your experience and i entirely agree with your claims made.
Content: I think your content raises more questions that is open for discussion. In par 6, line 1: you made your statement on clinicians, I think you can look at what literature there is on the different types of clinicians. Perhaps you can bring in some literature on what students do in certain cases where they exposed to bad clinicians? Perhaps you focus on bad clinicians only – bring out one ethical dilemma you faced with a bad clinician, how you handled it and what literature there is around it?
Argument: you made a very important statement within your piece – to strengthen it more back it up with evidence. I’m assuming you are pointing out an ethical dilemma – i am not too sure about which dilemma you faced and how you addressed it. I would recommend that you look in to dilemmas you faced with regard to this topic.
Referencing: Currently you don’t have any in-text references or a reference list. I think your piece will greatly benefit from concrete evidence.
Spelling and grammar: few errors picked up in your piece. i think your’re piece was well-written and has good logical flow to it.
I hope you find my feedback of some use. Please let me know if anything was unclear.
All the best with your final work.
Tammy
Hi Theron
thank you for sharing such a relevant piece with us. your piece highlights a very important topic and I am sure each of us can relate.
content
with regard to your content, I find it easy to read and follow, and everything you are saying is true. your experience is well described , however perhaps you could add experiences from other blocks where clinicians were bad, and how it affected your learning, and perhaps substantiate with literature. also relating to content, I know your piece is not complete, however I struggle to link it to a specific topic, or ethical dilemma discussed In class . perhaps in your final you could highlight the topic a bit more throughout your writing.
argument:
I think you have a good argument potentially. with this piece you could perhaps find research that shows the negative and positives for a student when the clinician is present etc. you can also add more personal experiences as mentioned before on how the clinician influenced your learning experience of patient treatment .
spelling and grammar
your piece is easy to read and follow, its also a good topic therefore easy to relate to. A few grammatical errors were noted, paragraph 1 sentence 2, perhaps reconstruct or break the sentence up to make it a bit easier to follow. the second highlighted word “physiotherapist” should be physiotherapists as you are speaking of more than one student (using “we”). the third highlighted word “in” should be “with”. in paragraph 5 , perhaps review which tense you are using and ensure the entire paragraph is in the same tense.
argument
your argument is good however it could have more references as well as more experiences to strengthen the argument. highlight the ethical dilemma as it would help you structure your argument much better
references
please add literature to back up what you are saying and to strengthen your argument
overall the piece is good. I am looking forward to reading the final piece.
all the best