Background: Student-led clinics (SLCs) offer unique clinical placement experiences and address unmet community rehabilitation needs. There is growing evidence that SLCs provide high-quality experiential practice and adequate quality of patient care. The purpose of this study was to evaluate patient satisfaction with student-led care and students' perception of their learning experiences in a student-led physiotherapy clinic.
Methods: Eight participants with total hip arthroplasty attended 6 weeks of student-led group exercise classes. As a marker of quality of care, we assessed key outcomes including walking speed and endurance, lower extremity function, falls risk and self-reported quality of life after 3 and 6 weeks. Patients completed a satisfaction survey at the end of the program. Ten students who completed a placement during this time shared their perception of learning in the SLC.
Results: Student-led group exercise class was associated with improvements in walking speed and endurance, lower extremity function, a decrease in falls risk and improved quality of life. Patients were satisfied with their care. The SLC was a safe learning environment in which students felt well-supported to develop confidence and independence, were encouraged to reflect on performance and take responsibility for care provided.
Conclusion: Patients are largely satisfied with the quality of care provided. High-quality authentic clinical learning opportunities provided in the SLC may offer pedagogical benefits over traditional practicums, and students are generally satisfied with their learning experiences. SLCs may provide a setting to expose students to research and gain appreciation for evidence-based practice.
Background: Objective Structured Clinical Examinations (OSCEs) are commonly used to provide feedback to students on their performance in formative examinations. However, students are often unable to act independently on the feedback they receive. This study explored how the use of video-assisted reflection in OSCEs can enhance students' ability to reflect and engage in sustainable feedback.
Methods: Twenty-one students undertaking a mock-final OSCE consented to have one of their examination stations filmed. Participants completed a series of reflective forms immediately after the OSCE, after verbal feedback from an examiner and finally, after watching the video of their own performance. Students were asked to predict their overall grade as well as list areas for improvement. Pearson r correlations examined the relationship between the examiners' grades and the candidates' self-predicted grades. Wilcoxon signed-rank tests were used to compare the length of reflections at each stage. Semi-structured interviews were conducted to explore students' beliefs on self-efficacy and how the video-assisted reflection altered their ability to act on feedback.
Results: The students' ability to self-assess and gauge their own performance improved significantly after undertaking the video-assisted reflection (p < 0.01). Furthermore, video-assisted reflection significantly increased the length of the student's reflections. In interviews, participants described multiple ways in which the video-assisted reflection improved their confidence and ability to act on feedback, highlighting a clear enhancement in self-efficacy.
Discussion: Video-assisted reflection of recorded OSCE stations represents an effective approach to increase student self-efficacy and subsequently improve engagement in sustainable feedback practice.
Background: Bedside teaching (BST), a time-honoured tradition of clinical teaching which integrates theoretical knowledge and clinical practice, has declined steeply over the last decade. Moreover, many clinician teachers today are not specifically trained in and/or comfortable in delivering effective BST. Resucitating this valuable educational format may require a new approach to preparing teachers and setting the stage for effective BST. Framing BST as an entrustable professional activity (EPA) for teachers may be one strategy to enhance its application and quality.
Methods: We aimed to redefine, describe essential features and effective practices for high-quality BST, based on clinical teacher participant perspectives through a focus group discussion and open-ended questionnaires via e-mail, supplemented by insights from literature.
Results: Based on data collected, we generated a definition of BST and a list of suggested strategies to optimise BST, for example, preparation, safe learning environment, flexible teaching and patient's benefits. A structured EPA description was created based on this definition.
Conclusion: Effective BST requires skilled clinical teachers who are comfortable and confident in this mode of teaching; framing BST as a teaching EPA could guide faculty development and clinical teacher certification.
Background: Team-based learning (TBL) currently relies on single best answer questions (SBAQs) to provide immediate feedback. Very short answer questions (VSAQs) are a reliable and discriminatory alternative that encourage learners to use more authentic clinical reasoning strategies compared to SBAQs. However, the challenge of marking VSAQs has limited their integration into TBL; we therefore explored the feasibility of VSAQs within a TBL session.
Methods: An online platform was developed to allow immediate marking of VSAQs during the TBL sessions. As part of the readiness assurance process, students completed VSAQs and SBAQs, which were marked in real time.
Results: Instructors were able to mark all VSAQs during the individual readiness assurance test (iRAT), which facilitated the provision of immediate feedback during the team readiness assurance test (tRAT). The mean time to mark five VSAQs was 422 seconds (SD 73 seconds). For VSAQs, the number of attempts to reach the correct answer ranged from 1 to 38, compared to 1 to 4 for SBAQs. In total, 71.6% of students agreed that using VSAQs in TBL helped to emphasise group discussions.
Discussion: The wide range of attempts at, and students' perspectives of VSAQs are suggestive of their positive impact on student discussion during TBL. We demonstrate how new technology allows VSAQs to be feasibly integrated into TBL with the potential to enrich group discussions.

