Survey of student clinical practice. Implications for educational programs

The purpose of this survey was to analyze the content of physical therapy students' clinical education programs. We developed and used patient and student record forms that elicited information on the age and sex of the patient groups, the types of pathological conditions, the number and types of treatments administered, the levels of assessments, the levels of supervision of students by clinical instructors, the time spent with patients, and the specialized educational activities at each facility. One hundred seventy-six students participated in the three-year survey; each student completed 600 hours of study for a total of 105,600 hours. The results of this study revealed that musculoskeletal disorders (47.26%) were reported most frequently; fractures of the lower extremities constituted 10.5% of those disorders. Therapeutic exercise was the most frequently used treatment procedure (57.3%). The data obtained through this survey may be useful for evaluating curricula and developing improved practice-specific education programs.