Clinical Education: A university of Durban-Westville case study

Abstract

Clinical education has been recognised as an important component of the undergraduate physiotherapy programme. As such it has received considerable attention in the literature. However the aspect of offering this component effectively to large numbers of students has not been addressed. The purpose of this retrospective study was to analyse and compare both quantitatively and qualitatively the effects of one highly structured and three semistructured models of clinical education using a 12 to 1 student: clinical instructor ratio. The study population consisted of the 1999 third year class of 39 students who were clinically supervised by four lecturers. The students’ block marks as well as their subjective impressions were analysed and summarized respectively. The results show that there were no significant differences between structured and semi-structured models. In addition a 12:1 student: clinical instructor ratio can produce good clinical education outcomes.