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Effects of Student Physical Therapists on Clinical Instructor Productivity Across Settings in an Academic Medical
Tonya L Apke1, Matthew Whalen2, John Buford3
1DPT, Physical Therapy Division, School of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences, The Ohio State University, 453 W 10th Ave, Rm 516, Columbus, OH 43210, (USA).
Background:
Clinical education is an integral component of physical therapy education. Both benefits and barriers exist in clinical education, but 1 commonly stated barrier includes the perception that students have a negative impact on clinical instructor productivity.
Objective:
The purposes of this study were to evaluate the productivity of physical therapist clinical instructors in an academic medical center before, during, and after clinical education experiences, determine if there are differences in productivity during clinical education experiences across settings, and compare clinical instructor productivity with that of therapists who did not have a student during the same time frames.
Design:
A retrospective design examined productivity across 3 years in acute care, inpatient rehabilitation, outpatient orthopedics, and outpatient neurology. Mean daily productivity was computed, normalized to an 8-hour day, and averaged for each week of the year. Data were analyzed using a repeated-measures ANOVA. Post-hoc comparisons were made within each setting to compare therapists with a student to those without. The Bonferonni-correction was used to control for multiple comparisons.
Results:
Clinical instructor productivity was significantly increased in outpatient orthopedics and inpatient rehabilitation, and approached significance in outpatient neurology, but was not significant in acute care. The presence of a student made clinical instructors more productive but had no effect on the productivity of other therapists in that setting during the same time frame.
Limitations:
We studied only 1 academic medical center and could not account for clinical instructor factors such as years of experience or student factors such as year in their program.
Conclusions:
Our results indicate that having a student increases productivity of therapists in various settings. Future studies should examine the impact of clinical instructor experience and student characteristics and should expand to other settings.
