Fritzsche K, Felix I; Hospital for Special Surgery, New York, NY. Fritzschek@hss.edu.

PURPOSE: The purpose of this report is to describe how one hospital structured their clinical affiliation program for a 16 week clinical affiliation, incorporating the achievement of entry-level clinical competence and the additional final project goals set by the individual DPT program. Foundation: Facility based clinical education programs are facing new challenges in response to changes in entry-level physical therapy programs. The increased length of clinical affiliations and requirements beyond entry-level clinical competence must be incorporated into facility based clinical education programs. The move towards the entry-level DPT will require facilities to consider restructuring final affiliations. This requires collaboration between center coordinators of clinical education, program directors and academic clinical coordinators. DESCRIPTION: Dialogue between one academic program and multiple facilities was initiated to present the new curriculum and changes in clinical education requirements. The benefits and challenges were openly discussed and final project requirements were considered. Facilities accepting students were required to provide project ideas, which ranged from research questions and functional outcomes to the development of patient education materials. Our facility took the following steps to incorporate this extended affiliation and research project for the first time. Students were interviewed to ensure an understanding of the project prior to final acceptance of the student. The student participated in a minimum of 2 half days of research per week. The remaining time was dedicated to clinical competency. A written outline of expectations and time frames for the project was developed prior to the arrival of the student and discussed and modified on the first day of the affiliation. This project included developing the research question, literature search, literature review with journal club presentation, IRB submission, data collection, data entry, data analysis and final presentation. OBSERVATIONS: Goals, expectations and time frames were mutual and clearly defined on the first day. The project was initiated the 1^st week. Achievement of research and clinical competency goals occurred simultaneously. Project time was not dependent on the achievement of clinical competency. Project presentations to the staff satisfied inservice requirements of the facility and academic program. CONCLUSIONS: The challenges facing clinical educators can be effectively turned into positive and productive educational experiences by collaboration with academic faculty, adequate planning, interviews, objective and measurable goals and support from department administrators. FUNDING SOURCE: None.

Copyright 2004 by the American Physical Therapy Association

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