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Level I Feildwork
467 Plays4 months ago
Josh and Miranda talk about level I fieldwork student expectations.
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Transcript
Introduction to Hand Therapy Academy
00:00:06
joshmacd
Hi, I'm Josh McDonald.
00:00:07
mmateri
And I'm Miranda Materi and we are Hand Therapy Academy.
00:00:11
joshmacd
Let's talk about students. We've covered some level two student stuff in the past, but I don't think we talked about level one students, kind of what our expectation is. We'll get a lot of schools that want to send students to us for level one, sometimes even the observation before.
Expectations for Level One Students
00:00:25
joshmacd
What do we want out of them? What are we expecting? What should they do when they show up?
00:00:28
mmateri
What paperwork do we have?
00:00:29
joshmacd
right What's your, yeah.
00:00:30
mmateri
but Yeah.
00:00:31
joshmacd
Yeah. Yeah. So what's your, what's your priority for a level one student as a business owner, as a therapist?
00:00:37
mmateri
Yeah, so just to clarify with the audience, ah so level ones are usually one week rotations, 40 hours, and it's strictly observation, or you might have them instructed exercises, but it's mostly supposed to be tight kind of hands hands off type of stuff.
00:00:43
joshmacd
Okay.
00:00:52
mmateri
um So um you asked me, what are my expectations? The first one is that always telling me, you know, you need to wear professional clothes. You need to show up on time. um I have them sign some waivers about HIPAA. I mean, hopefully they've had all that stuff in school, but I have them sign something. You know, basically they're not going to share any of the information outside of our clinic.
Preparing Students Before Arrival
00:01:14
mmateri
And a lot of the times we have contracts with these people at school. So that's kind of already in place. Unless they're just like an observation student, then that's a little different.
00:01:22
joshmacd
Yeah, yeah. um And some of those things sound like they wouldn't need to be said out loud, like showing up on time and wearing professional clothes. But, you know, there's more than once I've had to tell a student that's not an appropriate shirt to wear to a professional healthcare care setting. So, yeah.
00:01:37
mmateri
Yeah, or wearing flip flops. You know, I've had students show up with flip flops. I send them back home. I have students that have wanted smoke breaks, you know.
00:01:45
joshmacd
Interesting. Okay. All right. um Yeah. Things that, you know, it's, it's usually very early in their schooling. Your third level one is close right before your, you go out on 12 week rotations, but those first two are very early and you're just, some of these students are just getting used to what it means to be in these more professional settings. So it's a chance for them to learn some of that stuff.
00:02:07
mmateri
Yeah. And I usually try to like set all my expectations in an email beforehand so they don't just show up and say, Oh, I didn't know that.
Commitment to Observation Hours
00:02:15
joshmacd
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I have a standard um ah thing in my notes app when I get that email from a level one student from whatever school and they say, tell me what, I have this thing that I say, this is where you'll park, this is the address, here's your schedule, where professional you know business casual closed, and I have some of those things and I just copy paste that in so I don't forget to include something and I have to rewrite that every time.
00:02:35
mmateri
Yeah, that's a really good idea. I think I reword all the time.
00:02:39
joshmacd
I have to change it every once in a while and make sure I make put their name in it, but yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:02:41
mmateri
Yeah.
00:02:44
mmateri
Yeah, and then another thing that I've started doing, because we get a lot of students that maybe they're in undergrad and they just need observation. So this isn't directly in a level one. And I think you get a lot of these emails, too. They're looking for observation hours. But for me, it's not really worth it to take someone for four to five hours. Right. Like so now I've been asking for like, hey, if you're going to come to our site and you want me to sign up on your paperwork, I need to at least do 40 hours so you can get a good preview of what it's like and Because I feel like the four to five
Importance of Soft Skills and Engagement
00:03:15
mmateri
hours is nothing. What if you, you know, your caseloads could be so different?
00:03:18
joshmacd
Yeah, yeah, you could have three or four cancellations on a rough day and they see nothing. And that's ah that's a lost afternoon that shouldn't count for something.
00:03:26
mmateri
Yeah, so I've been making a little bit more of a commitment. So then I know we're not just getting anyone, we're getting someone that really wants to observe.
00:03:32
joshmacd
I like that idea. I like that.
00:03:33
mmateri
And a lot of times people say no, they're not interested.
00:03:34
joshmacd
Yeah.
00:03:37
joshmacd
And that screens them effectively then.
00:03:39
mmateri
Yeah, that's what I've been doing and it seems to be a good technique. You get the people that really want to be there and that are willing to put in the time.
00:03:45
joshmacd
Yeah yeah yeah so we have when we get level ones and I'll tell students I don't really mind if you come as a level one I'll tell schools you send them whenever it doesn't really that doesn't have an impact on our day all that much because I want them to be present and inquisitive. Good observers, but I'm not gonna, I don't have to go over a whole bunch of extra stuff. You just be here and soak in as much as you can from a like a the fly on the wall kind of perspective. You can ask questions, and if I'm not in the middle of writing notes or talking to a patient, I'll answer as many as I can.
00:04:18
joshmacd
But you just work on your observation skills, and then I'll ask you some questions as we go. What did you see and what like work on your observations?
00:04:24
mmateri
Yeah. Yeah. And I, during that time, I usually tell them this is a good place to observe some good soft skills. Like I'm greeting the patient, I'm asking how they're doing. If you see people come in and I'm with another patient, go ahead and introduce yourself and ask if it's okay if you sit in, you know, that way they're starting to work on some of those skills as well.
Managing Student Workload
00:04:45
joshmacd
Yeah, yeah. it is it It would be too easy to treat those as like just write-offs like, oh would I'm just here for a week and I'll just kind of watch stuff and and learn the technical. But you're right, those soft skills, how to how the therapists interact with each other and how this therapist reacts with someone else's patient and has a conversation with them about their family or whatever and making that clinic feel more welcoming than just like, we're here to work on hands.
00:05:09
mmateri
Yeah, or someone that's just like sitting there, like I've had students where they just sit in the middle of the room, like kind of in the way, you know, and you're like, hey, I need you to like engage with people around you, you know.
00:05:20
joshmacd
Yeah, yeah. Get out of other people's way. Yeah, yeah.
00:05:22
mmateri
Yeah, if a therapist needs a stool, don't be sitting on it.
00:05:27
joshmacd
Yes, yes, that too.
00:05:28
mmateri
Like and those I think are those soft skills that I think we take for granted and that you hope your student has sometimes they don't. Right. So and those are much harder to teach than the biomechanicals skills.
00:05:35
joshmacd
Yeah. Yeah, that that situational awareness.
Discovering Interests in Therapy Settings
00:05:43
mmateri
Yeah.
00:05:43
joshmacd
Yeah. Yeah. I also think, too, there's some awareness that I want the student to have about the workload they're asking from us is very minimal, but they have to usually have some forms they need us to fill out. They're going to write some goals that they need to accomplish. And they're usually, hey, I need to check these goals. Can you sign off on them? And when we're done, you gotta sign off. But don't come back a week later on Monday or Tuesday and say, oh, I forgot to do that. Here, can you sign this and get it back to me right away? Like, that doesn't make an emergency on my part because I'm busy with my day. I'll get to it. But make sure you're on top of those things that you need from the therapist.
00:06:19
mmateri
Yeah, and you filled out all the stuff that you, like I think like you put in the dates you were there. like i It's not my responsibility to go back and fill in all the dates and the hours. like I'll verify those are the times you were here, but I don't want to have to do all that extra work for you when that's something you're totally capable of doing.
00:06:36
joshmacd
Yeah, yeah, it is an opportunity for the students to be in that immersive environment. And it's not a lot of time, but it's enough for them to like a language immersion thing where you can be deep in that, but then don't take away from the therapist who's already committing some time to giving you some instruction and you know
Liability and Business of Hosting Students
00:06:55
joshmacd
guidance.
00:06:55
mmateri
Yeah, and I think it's an opportunity like I think a lot of times with level one students, at least for me, I think that they often feel like hands is not that exciting, right? It's like until you're in school, really like learning the anatomy and stuff I think is when it gets exciting. So I always tell them like, hey, you might think this is not the setting for you like I did. And you know, then I spent the last almost 20 years in it. So
00:07:20
joshmacd
Yeah. Yeah. And sometimes I'll have students come in expecting it to not be exciting and see some really cool patients. And then you can kind of see this light coming on and they're getting kind of excited about it. And it is you you get two level twos, but you get three level ones in different settings. Expose yourself to a variety of things because you never know what you're going to like. You may really decide you love pediatrics. or the mental health setting like that was really interesting and that can guide your choices for level twos or at least gives you something to you know to turn back to to say like you know I really want to go explore that once I'm a therapist yeah yeah very cool yeah yeah
00:07:52
mmateri
Yeah, yeah, it's definitely an opportunity. So ah you tell students have an open mind. um You know, we practice our soft skills and that's to me what a level one is getting a little experience in the setting.
00:08:06
joshmacd
Yeah, and a lot of those things, like you said, cross over to the observations too. Like schools have those requirements for applicants to get those observation hours in. It's kind of a screening tool for the schools to make sure you know what OT is and can check off that list, but have exposed yourself to it too. So we have the same general expectations from those observers. Don't come in and just figure you're going to check the box and go apply to school. Like get value out of your time there because I'm investing at least some of my time in your presence here.
00:08:35
mmateri
Right. And there for us as business owners, extra bodies and all that in the clinic is honestly a liability, right? Like if you think about it from a business standpoint, I never turn away students or anything like that, but we are like investing our time or putting some of our, you know, the liability into it. And we're trusting our, you know, the whole, and you're going to make the environment hopefully, you know, better than worse because we're also a customer service business.
00:09:02
joshmacd
Yeah, and we run the risk of that level one student, an observer, ah you know that that pre-OT school observation hours, that person could cause a problem and now I'm on the hook for it because it happened in my business. So we do open ourselves up to some risk with that.
00:09:15
mmateri
Right. Yeah, we do so.
00:09:18
joshmacd
Yeah. All right, well, just some things for those students who are maybe headed out to their level ones or trying to get their observation hours. If you guys have any questions about students, level one, level two, any of that stuff, don't hesitate to reach out and contact us. Our email is info at Hand Therapy Academy, or you can contact us on our social media platforms under the handle Hand Therapy Academy.