Mentoring and Personal Relationships Are Perceived Benefits of Serving as an Athletic Training Preceptor

Context Preceptors play a vital role in athletic training education as they mentor and socialize athletic training students into their professional role. Exploring the benefits to serving as a preceptor is important to secure appropriate professional role models for students. Objective To determine the benefits of serving as an athletic training preceptor. Design Qualitative study. Setting Undergraduate athletic training programs (ATPs). Patients or Other Participants Twenty-four preceptors (average age = 32 ± 7 years, 11 male, 13 female, average clinical experience = 9 ± 6 years, average preceptor experience = 5 ± 3 years) volunteered to participate in our study. Participants represented 7 undergraduate Commission on Accreditation of Athletic Training Education–accredited ATPs from the east coast. Data Collection and Analysis We asked participants to journal responses to open-ended questions through a QuestionPro online survey. We analyzed data using a general inductive approach. We secured credibility by using consistency and stakeholder checks and by having a peer review our work. Results Three main themes emerged from the data. Preceptors enjoy the personal relationships they build with students. The challenging atmosphere of supervising students while they gain knowledge to improve their skills also came through as a major benefit to serving as a preceptor. Finally, our participants enjoy teaching and mentoring the future members of the athletic training profession. Conclusions Our participants listed the relationships they build with students as rewarding, potentially leading to an improved professional commitment. Reciprocal learning between the preceptors and the students allows for a stimulating environment and has the potential to improve patient care. The enjoyment of teaching and mentoring students may aid in providing a dynamic atmosphere for students to learn.