PRACTICE PLACEMENT SUPERVISION - THE ROLE OF THE PERSONAL TUTOR

Confusion regarding the role of the nurse teacher in clinical practice has resulted in a service being offered to students that varies in ty pe, quantity and quality as perceived by students, teachers and placem ent staff alike. The role of the personal tutor is concerned with help ing the students to develop both professionally and academically. To f acilitate this, a good interpersonal relationship between student and personal tutor is essential. As interpersonal relationships take time to develop, the author advocates capitalizing on the relationship that (usually) already exists between personal tutors and students, and ex tending this into practice placement areas. The aim of this piece of r esearch was to ascertain the value, as perceived by the students, of h aving the personal tutor supervise them in college as well as in the f our branch placements of foundation studies. The methodology employed was a descriptive study utilizing a self-administered questionnaire. T he population was the students in foundation studies of the Lothian Co llege of Health Studies, and the sample was one of convenience, i.e. o ne cohort of students. The findings demonstrated that 55 students (n = 94) perceived value in having one nurse teacher supervising them in c ollege and in placements compared with 39 students who did not perceiv e any value. The students were asked about their practice placement su pervision by nurse teachers in terms of type, quantity and quality Of teaching. The students in the former group rated their practice placem ent supervision much lower than students in the latter group.