At the beginning of the placement myself and another student were introduced to about 8 different physios. We didn't realise that we were going to have to report to 8 different physios. In the past my experience has been that even if you work with different physios you usually report to one mainly and maybe a second depending upon the area in which you're working.
In the beginning stages of the placement, not only were we grappling with the placement itself we were also reporting and trying to link in with all the different physios. This proved to be a challenge. Each physio had a different idea of what they wanted from your treatment and the time that they wanted it done. This meant we spent more time running around trying to let everyone know where we were at then actually treating. We deliberated for a while trying to decide whether to let someone know or not. Finally we mentioned it to the acting senior and she responded really well. She wrote up a list and made a plan each day of what we should do and basically said that we let her know when we’re done and she’ll organize it from there.
The outcome worked well for everyone because they knew where we were and we knew where we stood. We weren’t wasting time hanging around and wondering what we should be doing because we had a plan. Sometimes it’s hard to know whether to speak up or not but in our case it ended working in our favour. In the future, I think you have to be careful how you bring the topic up and be tactful in the way in which you say it. But I think it's important to let supervisors know how you're feeling.
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3 comments:
I think you handeled the situation very well. I guess it's always better to let someone know if you're having an issue early on in the placement and then a solution can be reached.
I had a similar situation at my curent placement. Not quite 8 physios; but i had 3 changes in supervisors within the first week and a half. So even though i had established how to do things and the boundaries etc. with my original supervisor there was no point in the end cos i ended up with someone totally different. Luckily they all work similarly and are all good supervisors so i've had no problems but i can understand how reporting to more than one person could be frustrating and waste a lot of valuable learning time.
Seems like you have come to a good solution though!
I can see where you are coming from having multiple supervisers. On my gero's placement i had two supervisors - one of them a graduate of Notre Dame and the other from Curtin. This became frustrating, as they expected things to be differently when they were supervising you. The first week of the prac was annoying until i brought it to their attention. I learnt that this needed to happen as soon as possible so that it cuts out all the confusion and frustration earlier on in a prac. Well done
I think that what you described is such a common problem on placement. Your supervisor has such an impact on your time and having to explain your self to multiple supervisors can be difficult as it makes you seem inefficient and disorganised. One thing I found frustrating was if a problem came up, even if I felt I knew how to handle it, to be safe I always had to report to a supervisor... which meant finding them and explaining the situation and often having to relay information between staff members.. taking alot of time that is really unecessary, but i liked the way you handled your situation
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