Contributing to the Health Service
We expect students to actively contribute to Northern Health. As a student, you are on placement to learn how to be an effective health professional. Being a health professional means not only doing the direct clinical work of your chosen profession, it also means completing essential tasks that support and enable clinical practice such as documentation, referral and discharge paperwork, workload statistics, activities that allow for smooth running of the department, program or campus, professional development activities and independent learning. As a professional, you are expected to be an active and collaborative member of the wider health care team. We expect you to develop your skills in the technical areas of your discipline as well as the broader aspects of being a health professional.
Time management and workload
Work life is busy as a health professional. Learning how to prioritise your time is a vital skill that you will need as a qualified practitioner. Developing these skills while you are on placement will enable you to work more effectively when you commence as a new graduate. It is important to learn to prioritise with multiple needs in mind. These may include the needs of each individual patient; the needs of all the patients in your caseload; the needs of your manager/supervisor, department and organisation; the needs of the team, unit or program; and your own learning needs.
As you are learning, most things will take you longer to do than they would a qualified practitioner. Student caseloads are adjusted to account for this, particularly during your early placements. However, it is likely that you will have very full days during the time you are on placement. This means you will need to make time for independent study and follow-up learning activities outside the hours you are on placement. Supervisors will expect you to be prepared to focus on working with patients during your placement and will usually assume that in preparation for the placement you have revised the theory you have learned during your course. You may also have a project to complete, or a need to read up in preparation out of clinic hours.
Supervisors are people too!
Providing student supervision is just one part of the workload of most clinical supervisors. While you are on placement you will see some of the patients normally seen by your supervisor. However, as well as providing you with your learning experiences and supervision, they also need to keep up with the rest of their caseload and work commitments. You can gain from their experience and expertise by being prepared, by making the most of formal feedback and learning sessions, by taking responsibility for your own learning and working through a problem to the best of your ability before discussing it with them. Try to remember that teaching/supervising you is not their only commitment – they will be juggling a number of demands and priorities at any one time. Learning to work effectively with your clinical supervisors as a student is great practice for working with managers and supervisors as a practitioner. Finding out your supervisors preferred work and communication styles, discussing how you will work together (eg: frequency of formal meetings, style of written work, how/when feedback is preferred) and addressing any issues as they arise are all important skills in “managing up” that you will need throughout your career.
Space and resources
Northern Health campuses are relatively new and well designed. Despite this, the rapid growth of the Health Service and the issues of a resource constrained health system mean we never seem to have quite enough space or resources! At most Northern Health campuses the space available for offices, for both staff and students, is extremely limited. We will do our best to make you welcome and provide space for you to work, but our dedicated student spaces are very limited. We encourage you to make use of a range of work areas (eg: library at CHS, TNH and BECC) and discuss options with your supervisor. |
