Professional Experience
CURRICULUM OVERVIEW
"Professional Experience" refers to the clinical education portion of the Walsh University Doctor of Physical Therapy curriculum. Experiences include traditional clinical practice, administration, specialty practice, teaching, and research. Settings may include long term care, acute care, hospital or clinic based care, outpatient PT, and home health, to name a few. Specialties experiences may include but are not limited to clinical practice in sports medicine, pediatrics, orthopedics, geriatrics, neurology, cardiopulmonary, school-based, or research.
The professional experience courses are coordinated with the on-campus academic courses of the curriculum. As a student successfully completes courses pertaining to a specific type of patient condition, he or she is becoming prepared to enter a professional experience where knowledge, skills and behaviors can be transferrable. Students may not enter a professional experience course without satisfactory completion of all prerequisite academic course work.
There are four sequential full time professional experience courses (I, II, III and IV) integrated throughout the curriculum that combine for a total of 38 weeks of clinical education. Refer to Table 1. The emphasis of our clinical education related patient care and teaching is placed upon the body systems encountered by students in the academic course work, including the Musculoskeletal, Neuromuscular, Cardiopulmonary and Integument systems. Refer to Table 2. This is in contrast to the type of setting in which students are placed, however students are required to complete one inpatient and one outpatient clinical experience as part of our program. The collective clinical education experiences will provide opportunities for the student to observe and participate in learning experiences involving the patient-client management process, interdisciplinary teamwork, teaching, practice management/administrative activities, and supervision of physical therapist assistants and other supportive personnel.
Clinical Education Consortium. Walsh University’s physical therapy program is a member in good standing with the Ohio Kentucky Consortium of Physical Therapy Programs for Clinical Education (OKCPTP). More information about the OKCPTP can be found at: http://www.okptce.com/.
Clinical Education Resources. The following links provide information to clinical education faculty and students about the clinical education process for physical therapist students. These resources are made available through the American Physical Therapy Association at www.apta.org. Follow the link under the Education Programs Section.
APTA Clinical Education Center
http://www.apta.org/Educators/Clinical/
APTA Guidelines: Clinical Education Site Development
http://www.apta.org/Educators/Clinical/SiteDevelopment/
APTA Clinical Education Principles (Credentialing programs)
http://www.apta.org/PTClinicalEducationPrinciples/
APTA Clinical Educator Resource Center
http://www.apta.org/Educators/Clinical/EducatorDevelopment/
Online CPI resources: Available under assessment section
http://www.apta.org/Educators/Assessments/
Clinical Site Information Form template
http://www.apta.org/CSIF/
PT Student Site Evaluation Form: Available under assessment section
http://www.apta.org/Educators/Assessments/
PT CPI Online
https://cpi2.amsapps.com/user_session/new