ACQ_Vol_11_no_3_2009

Clinical placements

A national snapshot of clinical placements in Australia Heads of Speech Pathology Programs and Speech Pathology Australia

C linical education placements are a core part of every university speech pathology course in Australia. Clinical education placements allow students to develop both generic and speech pathology specific clinical competencies in real environments with real people. Among other things they also allow students to determine whether they have chosen the “right” career path, to identify areas of clinical work they enjoy or don’t enjoy, and to understand the roles speech pathologists take in different workplaces. University programs strive to provide their students with a variety of high quality clinical learning opportunities throughout their degrees. Clinical education is also the interface between universities and the speech pathology profession. Feedback flows to and from members of the profession and university staff on a range of issues that include the changing nature of the workplace, theoretical advances, new service delivery models, changes to educational approaches and aspirations for the future of the profession. This ongoing dialogue keeps those who chose to participate in clinical education updated with what is happening in universities and the workplace. The dialogue also ultimately benefits students, graduates and employers because graduates are well prepared to enter contemporary workplaces. Despite the recognised core role of clinical education in the preparation of speech pathologists for the workplace, it is under threat from all sides. Universities are commonly required to justify the expense incurred in sourcing and supporting external clinical placements. Speech pathologists in the field often receive little workplace support for accepting students on placement and as workloads and pressures rise, it becomes increasingly more difficult to accommodate students within an already busy day, week, or month. Partly in response to this, speech pathology university programs have increasingly moved clinical education experiences into on-campus clinics and university financially supported external clinics. This in turn results in more questioning by university leaders about the cost of clinical education in speech pathology. University administrators look across university programs and compare the cost of speech pathology programs with the external internships of engineers who are paid by industry to complete their placements in their company, and exercise and sports science students who find and negotiate their own professional practice experiences. In this environment of increasing threat from all sides, Heads of Speech Pathology Programs and the then national president of Speech Pathology Australia, Trish Bradd decided that it was timely to take a baseline measure of clinical education experiences across Australia. The baseline will serve as an ongoing measure regarding the percentages

of clinical education provided by universities versus external organisations and the proportions of adult, child and mixed placements as well as rural and regional placements. The remainder of this article presents a snapshot of the clinical placements that occurred in Australia in 2005. The context Before presenting data about clinical placements in each state it is important to contextualise this information. Table 1 presents the number of Speech Pathology Australia members in each state in 2005 so as to provide a guide to the relative proportions of speech pathologists in each state. The table also presents the approximate numbers of University clinical coordinators and administrators were asked to supply information regarding the number of weeks of clinical education placements undertaken by their student cohort in 2005. All types of placements including one day or half day per week placements were converted to a total number of weeks involved in the placement. Universities also provided information about where the placements occurred and the type of caseloads that students worked with. This information is summarised for each state in Table 2. Table 1. Approximate numbers of Speech Pathology Australia members and speech pathology students by state, 2005 State Speech Number Approxi- Approximate Pathology of mate number of Australia university number final year members programs of students students NSW/ACT 1,124 5 (3UG, 2PG) 620 150 Vic 952 2 (1UG, 1PG) 360 95 Qld 693 3 (2UG, 1PG) 300 75 Tas. 71 0 0 0 SA 198 1 (1UG) 130 33 WA 446 2 (1UG, 1PG) 200 55 NT 27 0 0 Total 3,511 13 (8UG, 5PG) 1,610 408 students enrolled in speech pathology degrees (undergraduate and postgraduate) in 2005. A snapshot of clinical placements in 2005

Keywords clinical placements education workplaces

Michelle Lincoln

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ACQ Volume 11, Number 3 2009

www.speechpathologyaustralia.org.au