HP 223 Clinical Teaching & Evaluation of Clinical Competence

Scenario

A clinical teacher handling 5 Physical Therapy interns rotating in the burn unit decided to conduct weekly assessments of his interns so that he will be able to gather enough information at the end of their four-week rotation.  He utilized a 5-page checklist provided by the training officer.  This is the assessment tool developed by the training committee which all clinical teachers used to assess their assigned interns.  Because the checklist was too long, and he didn’t want to be holding a bunch of papers during patient rounds, he would fill out the checklists at the end of the day.  The results of the checklists are discussed with the interns at the end of the week.

During feedback sessions, he admits it’s usually difficult to give very specific feedback to each intern because he feels there isn’t enough time to see all the expected competencies of each student.  That’s why he would usually conduct group feedback instead.  He feels this will also be beneficial to more students compared with individual feedback sessions.

The final grade of the interns for the burn unit rotation is based on the average rating of the student from the checklist scores per week.  He noticed that in the past year that he has been a clinical teacher in the burn unit rotation, no student has ever gotten a failing mark.