Physiotherapy News
Charlotte Denniston, Honours student, Monash Physiotherapy wins ANZAME Undergraduate Student Prize 2007
‘ANZAME 2007 is the first conference I have attended, and my experiences there were stimulating and rewarding. I particularly enjoyed small group discussions within a multidisciplinary group.’
Charlotte Denniston, a third year Bachelor of Physiotherapy Honours student from Monash University, was awarded the 2007 “Undergraduate Student Prize” from the Australian and New Zealand Association for Medical Education (ANZAME). The prize was for Charlotte’s submission of a Case-Based Learning (CBL) task focused on clinical education in physiotherapy. Alongside keynote speakers, Charlotte presented her clinical education initiative to delegates at the annual ANZAME conference held in Canberra in September.
The case entitled “Courtney’s Clinical” was written to highlight key issues that students may encounter in clinical education, including aspects of the supervisory process, conflict resolution, the importance of students’ being explicit about their learning needs in the placement, and the role of feedback in facilitating both students’ and educators’ learning and performance. The case is supported by a review of current literature in health professional education. Charlotte’s CBL project is an excellent model that may be used in undergraduate health professional courses, and already has been used as part of Monash’s “Pre-Clinical Week”,that is designed to prepare Year 3 physiotherapy students for clinical education.
Charlotte is currently undertaking her Bachelor of Physiotherapy Honours degree. This embedded honours programme, designed and led by Professor Jenny Keating, includes undertaking a systematic literature review, attaining ethics approval, conducting empirical research and writing a 12 000 word thesis. Charlotte’s research “Physiotherapy clinicians’ attitudes and approaches to clinical education: what is perceived as best practice?” is being supervised by Dr Liz Molloy and Ms Wendy Nickson, Department of Physiotherapy, Monash University. The project involves a questionnaire and a series of clinical educator focus groups to gain insight into clinicians’ viewpoints on effective clinical education practice. Charlotte will present her research findings at the completion of 2008, and aims to publish both her clinical education CBL initiative “Courtney’s Clinical” and the results of her research on perceptions of best practice in clinical education.
