Twelve tips for supporting student learning in multidisciplinary clinical placements

Healthcare profession students participate in a range of clinical placements within multidisciplinary health care settings. Often these placements offer students opportunities to participate in activities with staff and/or students from other healthcare disciplines. Although health service staff generally recognise the importance of clinical placements for student learning, they sometimes feel overwhelmed by workload and resource constraints. As a consequence, the potential of the clinical team to contribute to student learning may not be fully realised. A key element of successful clinical placement programs across all healthcare disciplines is a coordinated approach to the development and management of complex university/health service partnerships. Explicit mechanisms to support clinical team members in their teaching roles can also contribute to develop and sustain staff capacity for student supervision, as appropriate recognition of clinical staff contributes to student learning. Twelve tips are offered for consideration by universities, health services and clinical staff when planning and implementing student clinical placements in multidisciplinary healthcare settings.