Scope: In March 2020, COVID-19 restrictions prompted services delivered by student-led clinics in the university sector to transition to telehealth. This provided a unique opportunity to explore the challenges and opportunities faced by clinical educators when supervising students to deliver telehealth. Methodology: Semi-structured interviews were conducted with allied health clinical educators who supervised students on clinical placement who were required to provide services via telehealth. Clinical educators across the disciplines of audiology, occupational therapy, physiotherapy, and speech pathology were asked to reflect on their experiences and perceptions of the rapid transition to a telehealth model for student clinical placements. A content analysis approach was used to analyse qualitative data. Conclusions: From the perspective of clinical educators, student-led telehealth services can effectively meet client needs while achieving student learning outcomes. This study highlights many opportunities for student learning via telehealth in the clinical education environment and the role of the clinical educator in the learning experience.
Introduction: This study explores allied health students' experience with and perceptions of telerehabilitation prior to and following the rapid transition of university clinical placements to telerehabilitation due to COVID-19.Methods: Semi-structured interviews were conducted with allied health students who had completed a clinical placement (between March and September 2020) at the University of Queensland that was rapidly transitioned to telerehabilitation due to COVID-19. Students were asked to report on their pre-conceptions, lived experience and post placement reflections of delivering consultations via telerehabilitation rather than in-person. Qualitative data were analysed using thematic content analysis.Results: 18 students (72% female, 20 to 31 years of age) from speech pathology (39%), physiotherapy (39%), occupational therapy (11%) and audiology (11%) conducted telerehabilitation consultations. Reflections on preconceptions of telerehabilitation nested under four themes: clinical effectiveness, interacting/communicating via telerehabilitation, technology and anticipation about a telerehabilitation placement. Experiences during placement clustered under similar topics of clinical effectiveness, interacting/communicating, practical aspects and technology. Reflections upon completion of placements related to experience in a global pandemic, benefits of combining technology and telerehabilitation, convenience, future use and knowledge, skills, and confidence with telerehabilitation.Conclusion: Despite initial concerns, students were able to rapidly transition to telerehabilitation and effectively deliver quality care, modify techniques, and achieve positive client outcomes. Student skills, knowledge and confidence improved with rapid exposure through learning "on the go", and many indicated willingness to continue to use telerehabilitation in the future.
Speech pathology students are required to demonstrate competency across a range of practice areas. There are, however, limited opportunities for students to access clinical placements in the area of stuttering. Simulation-based learning (SBL) activities have proven to be effective in increasing students’ clinical experience in this area. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the delivery of in-person SBL programs was not feasible, resulting in a shift to online provision. The aim of this study was to investigate the perceptions of students, clinical educators and simulated patients who participated in an online adult stuttering SBL experience. Ten first-year graduate entry Masters program speech pathology students participated in the study alongside four clinical educators and four simulated patients. The experience involved two online SBL sessions and one online tutorial via videoconferencing from separate locations. Each participant group engaged in focus group interviews exploring their perceptions of the online SBL activity. Thematic network analysis of the focus group interview data was conducted. Overall interpretation of the data from the perspectives of students, clinical educators and simulated patients revealed an overarching global theme that online SBL offers a positive, comfortable and comparable experience to enable students to build client-centred, clinical and telepractice skills. The positive outcomes of this study suggest that together with in-person clinical experiences, online SBL has an important role in the education of speech pathology students.
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