166. Clinical Instructor Tips to Set Your Student Up For Success

Welcome to the PT Snacks podcast with your host, Kasey! In this episode, we delve into the role of a clinical instructor (CI) for physical therapists and physical therapy students, addressing common challenges and providing strategies to ensure a successful rotation. From pre-arrival communication to day-one interactions, and ongoing feedback, Kasey covers how to make students feel comfortable, set clear expectations, and effectively guide them through their clinical training. Tune in for practical tips and insights to help both instructors and students thrive in a clinical setting.

00:00 Introduction to PT Snacks Podcast
00:18 Today's Topic: Becoming a Clinical Instructor
01:25 Setting Up for Success Before Day One
02:51 First Day: Meeting and Assessing Your Student
05:28 Guiding Through Evaluations and Treatments
11:05 Providing Feedback and Managing Expectations
14:34 Final Thoughts and Additional Resources

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Transcript

 📍 Hey guys. Welcome to PT Snacks podcast. This is Kasey, your host, and if you're tuning in for the very first time, first of all, welcome. But this podcast is meant for physical therapists and physical therapist students who are growing their fundamentals in bite-sized segments of time. Now, that being said, today we're gonna have a little bit of a different episode talking about how to be a clinical instructor, because this can be. Frustrating, nerve wracking, anxiety invoking for a lot of physical therapists and students, but we're gonna talk about it from the CI perspective or clinical instructor perspective. Now, there's a lot of things that we could say about this. This is just more of an overview of how to set yourself up for success. Maybe we'll have some more topics in the future, especially if you guys have specific questions. But. Before we do that, if you have listened to this show for at least three episodes and you feel like, wow, this has been really helpful for me, if you wouldn't mind leaving a review just wherever you listen to this YouTube. Apple Podcasts, Spotify, et cetera, that would mean the world to me. 'cause those really do make a big difference on helping to reach other people who also may benefit from it. And for those of you who have already done so, I really appreciate you. Thank you so much. But that being said, let's dive in today's topic and go over. CI instructions. So let's approach this from a more chronological perspective. I think that will help be a bit more organized in this topic. Meaning, let's say you know who your student is in ideal scenario, you have their email information, all that. They're not starting yet, but you can go ahead and set up the expectations right from the get go by shooting them an email. In fact, getting some sort of information before showing up can. Make a vast difference in how, at ease your student feels. 'cause they get to hear from you, they get a sense of what your personality is, at least in written communication. And they hopefully know where to show up, what to show up with. So in that email you can introduce yourself, you can talk about, this is my patient population, this is where I work, I'm so excited to do this. And then you can also lay out specifics in terms of where are they gonna park, can they bring their food? Is there a fridge for them to put their food in? What do they wear? What time do you want them to show up on their first day? And what can they expect on their first day? Is it gonna be mainly doing safety videos like in a hospital system, or are they going to be treating with you right away? So being able to give them a little bit of an idea of what to expect. It can be very helpful for those students. And then let's say it's day one. You told them what time to come, you told 'em where to meet. Now you're meeting. In that meeting, that is a really great time to just get an idea of what level are they coming in at? Meaning where are they in their schooling, what's their comfort level? Have they done different? Rotations and had other cis, and if they have great, what worked for them then in terms of feedback from their instructor or could have been different patient populations, but that gives you kind of an early semblance of what went well for them, what didn't go well. You can get an idea of what they perceive as their strengths and weaknesses. As the rotation goes along, you may disagree with those, but at least you kind of know where their head space is at. And then also just getting an idea of how do they learn? How do they want feedback, being able to. Perceive if they want feedback right then and there are they a little bit more shy in front of the patient and don't want any feedback in front of other people? Those are all really important things to understand. And then are they someone who needs to take notes? Do they need to walk around with a notebook? Are they someone who. They're very visual, and when you teach them things, you need to have something pulled up in front of 'em, whether it's a anatomy diagram or a textbook. All of those things are very important. And then ask them what potential barriers they see in whether this rotation will go well. It might not even be related to the content of like being a pt. What's their living situation like? What's their commute like? Are there any extra potential stressors that could impact their ability to like, focus and be in a good head space, financial issues, . It's good to just try and catch that the best you can so that you can help them, the best that you can. Um, but also setting expectations on professionalism. What should they be wearing? What time should they be showing up? How do they treat other patients and physical therapists? All of those sorts of things and introduce 'em around, make them feel comfortable. If you work with a team of other people. Show them where everything is. Remember that they may be used to sitting all the time snacking whenever they want getting water breaks whenever they want. Uh, it's going to be very exhausting, just even remembering where the bathrooms are. So they may not remember everything from that first meeting. If there's something you really want them to remember, it might be good to have that written down that they can take home with them now. In terms of the rotation itself, there are a lot of ways where you can go about helping your student, depending on their experience level, understand when to be involved, and when to not be involved. And so what I mean by this is are they gonna be just shadowing you for a while? Are they jumping in from the get go? I think it's helpful on average. Depends again on their experience level to have a period of time where they're just kind of. Observing you. Uh, maybe you're asking them questions about things that make them think of what diagnosis that patient could have or what would be a good exercise for achieving a certain goal on your treatment goal. That way you can talk to 'em and see, okay, where are they at clinically? Do they have a good understanding of this, or do I need to maybe fill in more gaps, essentially? And then deciding when they increase in their load. So I like to divide it mentally into. Evaluations and treatments on actual patient care on which ones I progress. So if we're talking about evaluations first, they might observe me first. I might ask them, Hey, do you have any other questions that I might've missed? So they feel like they can dip their toes in the water. Maybe they start taking over the subjective, and then I do the rest, subjective and objective, and I might have them just so I can follow along be able to. After subjective tell me like, Hey I'm gonna write down my differential diagnoses. So you're not telling your patient and they might have all these things and then now they're stressed about things that may or may not be accurate. But being able to type them and you look at 'em and then start doing the objective, start doing the exercises. That all depends on. How difficult the patient is not meaning yes from a personality perspective, but if it's a very unique patient condition you may have to step in and help your student and that's okay. You can let 'em know, Hey, I don't wanna leave you dry. But also hopefully you've talked about. Strategies to help the student ask you for help without losing street cred in front of the patient. 'cause what we don't wanna do in any time in the clinic is to completely discredit our student in front of our patients. And then now they're trying to treat these students and the patients are like, I was stuck with a student. We wanna build up our student as much as we can. But still create a safe environment for our patients. So some things I've done in the past would be helping my student come up with specific phrases that were like a clue to me, like I need help. That sounded neutral to the patient. So it could have been like. Maybe they did their subjective and objective and they're like, I don't know what's going on. It'd be a phrase of like, Hey Casey and I are gonna go and print off your exercises and then we'll be right back. And then we go around the corner and then we talk and actually talk about what's going on. Or it could be. Specifically, they're getting ready to do their objective tests and they're going through things and they're like, ah, I don't know what to do. And then they look over to me and they say, Hey, I think I'd like to test this. And then I, as a clinical instructor would be like, I think that's great as a signal of like, you're doing good. Like keep doing what you're doing. Or I could take that and be like, what if we test this instead? And then. It still comes across as, oh, we're collaborating. I'm not completely derailing my student in front of the patient, but they have some sort of guidance that can be helpful. Now in treatment that could look like what I already mentioned before of like just asking them about treatments and then maybe saying. Hey, I, I want some treatment ideas for achieving this goal. What do you think? And then once they say some, if I think it sounds good, and be like, okay, go do them. And then I'm just trying to let them experience and troubleshoot and see how things are going. If it is safe, you can let them go and do what they're wanting to do. Obviously, if there is a dangerous scenario happening. That is something where we need to stop that right away. But if it's a situation where maybe you wouldn't agree with it, we don't need to micromanage our students, but we can be like, Hey, is this going the way that you want it to go? And they can be like, yeah, be like maybe we talk about later and be like, Hey, also, maybe let's go ahead and do some of these exercise too, or depending on if you think it's okay, you just leave them be, or it might just be, hey, you pick up some exercises and learn some things from your student too, that you're like, oh, this was a great idea. Good job. Give them feedback either way, whether that's in the moment or afterwards or both. And then with time, you're having. Create treatment plans where you can talk through the why behind what you did and being able to manage more and more at the same time, starting with easier patient diagnoses and then working towards harder ones. Just make sure that you are available, you're not throwing to them, to the wolves. If they are a higher level student, challenge them. If they are just needing to review anatomy. They should already know anatomy, but you may not be giving them the hardest patients on your schedule, right? So you have to cater it to the student that's in front of you. And then during that, don't leave room for surprises. And what I mean by that is midterms and finals are not when you should be hearing about problems for the first time or your student hearing about problems. You need to set up a regular cadence of when you are giving focus feedback not in front of patients. And that could be weekly, that could be, I, I think weekly is kind of the best way to go about it if you can. But that could be 10 minutes, that could be a whole lunch hour. Depends on what is realistic that you can keep up with during the whole duration. But that's where you're talking about maybe special topics that you need to cover. So you could divide it depending on how many weeks they're there into topics like, Hey, we're gonna cover specific regions of the bodies, the most common diagnoses. Uh, it could be. Diagnoses that you see the most often in the front and then least often towards the end would make sense so that they can help you a little bit quicker. Make it easier on yourself. It could be on specialized topics, strength and conditioning, things like that. Create that list together if you can. You though as a clinic instructor have the final say in what you're covering. 'cause sometimes students don't know what they don't know, and they might have a different awareness of their skill levels than what you're seeing portrayed in the clinic. And leave space to cover other things, or allow for unique opportunities for your student if they wanna go observe a surgery, if that's possible or. They want to learn about how to do a specific style of treatment, and maybe someone in your clinic sees more of that than you do. Maybe you can ask that therapist if they can shadow for a day or something like that. That'd be really cool for your student to be able to see. But those are all scenarios where you can say, Hey, what's going well and what's not going? Because you're giving them an opportunity to voice not just what, they think you wanna hear, but also things that you may not. So not just getting and giving feedback on patient care, but also on how your relationship as CI and student is going, allowing them a safe space where they can give you feedback too on, Hey, I really don't respond to this style of learning. Could we try this instead? And you don't want them to be like shaken in their boots telling you where you're like maybe you should just be better. And then you just make them shut down. But being able to take that and be like, yeah, I've never thought about it like that. Why don't we try that? And then you just let me know if I'm missing the boat and we will figure something out. I'll do my best though. It makes it a lot more comfortable as an experience for both of you. And then the things that you do have feedback on, understand that there's a difference between something that may be your preference and something that is. Actually something they should know that impacts their ability to be safe and effective and pass their rotation. Let 'em know what they're doing well and what things you'd like them to improve on. And help 'em as time goes on to reflect on where they've come. 'cause these are very exhausting for students. They may feel, depending on how things are going, they might be crushing it. They may be struggling through it. These are all really important things to be able to talk through with your students so that we're helping our future colleagues to do well in our career and, and not be completely turned off from the profession, right? Or even just the field, the specialty that you're in. And lastly, you might feel self-conscious about what you know. And the reality is you just need to know a little bit more than they do because they're gonna learn so much from just being there. Don't be afraid to say, I don't know, but you can frame it in a way of, Hey, that's a good question. I'm not sure the answer. Why don't we figure that out together? And that helps them to. Feel like they can keep asking more questions and you to also feel like you can be honest and authentic in, in what you're learning and be able to set everyone up for success. But don't worry about thinking about yourself if you're having to wow your student. They're gonna learn so much just by being with someone who truly cares about their success. If you can't do anything else, just help them to be safe and effective and give them a supportive learning environment where they just get even exposed to a potential specialty that they wanna be involved in. There's so much more that I could say on this topic but. Hopefully this is some food for thought on at least getting started as a ci, setting things up for success. Some things you may agree with, some things you may not. I can take feedback too, so you can always shoot me a message on other questions you may have or. Things that you don't like what I said, and that's fine too. But you would do that at pt Snacks podcast@gmail.com. You can also get in touch on Instagram threads, YouTube, and our email list. Our email list. I'm actually gonna be sending out regular emails just talking about. The topic of the week, how to best study for that. Other things that maybe are tips and tricks I found along the way. You can sign up in our link below in the show notes. And then, yeah, if you want to take deeper dives in any particular topics, med Bridge is actually offering listeners over a hundred dollars off their year subscription. There are thousands of courses and webinars and specialty exam prep, but they also have an option where there's an HEP builder, a home exercise builder where they have a ton of exercises that you can type in and either print out for your patients or you can. You give them, help them to create an account where they can log in and see videos of that regularly. So you would just use the promo code PT Snacks podcast. You can also find that in the show notes below. But other than that, let me know if you guys have any questions and until next time.