Professional Experience Placement

Wishing everyone a Merry Christmas and a safe and healthy New year. I hope that 2013 brings useful information and lively discussion that generates connections among clinical supervisors and other interested parties. Please consider contributing to the PEPCommunity Twitter feed by joining the conversation on Twitter or posting a comment at this blog.

During 2012 there has been a focus on developing resources that can be used by professional experience facilitators in their workplaces.  Many of the resources are to assist new and experiences supervisors of undergraduate students with a framework for guidng and supporting students undertaking professional experience.  There are a range of documents that are now available to ensure transparency of process for all stakeholders. Additionally there are resources available to assist with the role and function of being a professional experience facilitator. Importantly, there are forms and questionnaires that are available for use in your workplace.  The use of these tools and resources provides students and supervisors with a consistent approach regardless of where they are in practice. There is now an orientation guide and questionnaire that professional experience facilitators can use to plan orientation and gain information about student expectations about their placement. Furthermore, there is also an evaluation form that students can use to provide feedback to their facilitator. This tool can be useful by facilitators to reflect on their performance. It models the current procedure where students are also asked to reflect on their learning within the professional experience environment.

The professional experience web pages also provide documents to support students at risk during professional experience.  There is a decision making tree to assist with identifying and supporting students who are at risk in practice.  There is also a weekly feedback record that can be informally or formally used to document student progress. Accident or injury report forms are also available at this site.  There is now an illustrated guide of student learning activities that can be undertaken in appropriate units.

There are a range of documents provided to inform and assist professional experience facilitators, preceptors and supervisors to be informed or join the community of practice about professional experience. This network now has over 90 members who belong to a range of healthcare organisations in Australia and Internationally.  This community of practice is free to join, easy to set up and available to anyone who has access to the internet. I urge you during the break from your learning and teaching activities to browse the professional experience web pages and PEP blog to familiarise yourselves with the resources that are available to you and your students to ensure that a high quality professional experience is achieved by all stakeholders.  If you have any comments about the resources, or suggestions about others that would be useful, you are welcome to post them here.

The next blog posting will be in 2013.  HAPPY NEW YEAR.