Professional Experience Placement

Welcome to the Professional experience placement blog for any supervisors of students for 2016. I hope you will enjoy @PEPCommunity by joining the conversation or lurking with us! The first few blogs for the year focus on clinical supervisors and educators, their perceptions, role and ethics. Enjoy!

An article by Trede, Sutton and Bernoth (2016) reviewed the literature to conceptualise the role of the preceptor, their scope, expectations and responsibilities. These authors describe preceptors are practitioners who are only secondarily educators.  Their primary role is patient care and supervision of students is viewed as an add-on to their role. Preceptors may find there is a tension between a practitioner and a preceptor due to role clarity; recognition or unsupportive work environment. Moreover, this poor recognition and the potential benefit to organisations is compounded by the perception that students could be risk to patient safety and error prevention that can lead to an unwillingness to supervise. The authors propose that there needs to be a reconceptualisation of the role of the preceptor to a focus on collective responsibility for creating conducive workplace environments for student learning. Understanding how the preceptor is conceptualised was the aim of the study. To answer their research question four questions were posed.  These were 1) how do the articles conceptualise preceptorship; 2) what pedagogical frameworks are used to understand preceptorship; 3) what are the messages for preceptorship practices; and 4) what are the recommendation for future research.

The methodology used is outlined in the paper by Trede et al (2016). However, it is the findings that have implications for clinical supervision of students. The literature revealed that there needed to be further studies seeking the perception of preceptors rather than students or the University perspective. These authors also found there was limited theorisation of the preceptorship role at an organisation or policy level that is problematic because there is a lack of preparedness for the role; absence of dedicated hours to the role or remuneration for the role.  There is also derision by nursing peers and a lack of contact between the preceptor and the academics based at the students’ university.

Strategies to improve preceptorship include strengthening the partnership between the University and the individual preceptor and organisation; provision of access to clinical supervision support for preceptors; facilitate communities of practice for preceptors to enable peer learning, mentoring and feedback regarding performance. Access to continuing professional development opportunities is necessary to enable preceptors to engage in theoretical understanding of pedagogy; develop networks and support among peers and build leadership capacity required to build conducive learning environments for students, preceptors and their colleagues.

This blog and the associated microblog using Twitter that regularly provides contemporary information for clinical supervisors are methods for engaging with clinical supervisors.  The blog provides information about contemporary issues, education opportunities or University information.  The microblog invites you to lurk or participate in knowing about current issues or information.  The #PEPCommunity hash tags is available to post your information to the community of practice @PEPCommunity.

If you have any suggestions about enabling preceptorship you are welcome to post them here.  Please join us @PEPCommunity.