Designing, Implementing, and Evaluating a Practice Tutor Internship Model during an Acute Care Clinical Internship

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to implement and evaluate a novel internship model that incorporates a practice tutor in physiotherapy clinical education during an acute care cardiorespiratory internship at a large acute tertiary care teaching hospital in Canada. Method: A prospective evaluation of this model was conducted by means of a mixed-methods approach using surveys and focus groups. The participants were students and clinical instructors (CIs) who were taking part in the internship. Results: Half of the CIs agreed that the practice tutor model gave them more time to manage their caseload and work with the student than did the traditional model, and 63% would recommend the model for future internships. In reviewing the focus group and open-ended data, we identified four themes: benefits, tensions, critical logistics, and unforeseen blind spots. There was a trend for patient attendance to increase with the practice tutor model compared with the previous year's internship session and with the 5 weeks immediately preceding the internship. Conclusions: On the basis of CIs' and students' self-reports, the piloted practice tutor model was perceived to facilitate students' clinical reasoning and collaborative learning skills. In addition, during the 5-week internship, the number of patients seen each day by the individual CIs and their students was not reduced, with a trend toward increased patient attendance. There was also a trend toward CIs having the same or more time to manage their caseload and work with the students compared with a non-practice tutor internship model. Recommendations to improve this model in future implementations are made.