Clinical Education Leadership & Roles
- Director of Clinical Education (DCE): faculty member of record for the clinical education courses. The DCE is responsible for managing and coordinating the clinical education program, including coordinating student placements, facilitating clinical site agreements, and clinical faculty development. The DCE also acts as an intermediary between the Universities, clinics, SCCEs, CIs, and learners.
- Assistant Director of Clinical Education (A-DCE): works alongside the DCE to complete all clinical education tasks.
- Integrated Clinical Experience (ICE) Course Director
- Site Coordinator of Clinical Education (SCCE): oversees the clinical education needs of a particular site and may provide clinical instruction. They administer, manage, and coordinate CI assignments and learning activities during clinical education experiences. SCCEs determine the readiness of physical therapists to serve as CIs, supervise CIs in the delivery of clinical education experiences, and act as liaisons between the facility, the DCE/A-DCE, CIs, and students. SCCEs must meet certain minimal requirements based on the APTA Guidelines and Self-Assessments for Clinical Education.
- Clinical Instructor (CI): licensed physical therapist at a clinical site who directly instructs and supervises students during their clinical education experiences. They assess learner performance in cognitive, psychomotor, and affective domains as related to academic and clinical performance expectations, providing constructive feedback in a timely manner, allowing learners sufficient opportunities to improve their skills. CIs are expected to meet certain minimal requirements to supervise students based on the APTA Guidelines and Self-Assessments for Clinical Education. Every CI must be a licensed physical therapist, possess a minimum of one year of clinical experience, demonstrate professional attributes and characteristics for role modeling, and be interested in working with students. Ideally, CIs will complete the APTA Clinical Instructor Education and Credentialing Program. All CIs receive a certificate of appreciationafter teaching/supervising a full-time learner, and they can use this toward their continuing education requirements. You are also welcome to send a thank-you note to your CI and/or SCCE after the experience.
Recipients of CI of Excellence Award
- Blair Linmon - 2022
- John Lovejoy - 2021
- Chrissy Friesen – 2020
Readiness & Documentation Requirements
The Core Faculty and DCE determine eligibility for each learner to participate in clinical education experiences. Criteria include:
- Cumulative 3.0 GPA at both UCSF and SFSU, and in combination
- Passing grades and 100% safety on all practical and competency exams
- Compliance with professional behavior expectations
- Additional for PT 802: Passing grade on acute care qualifying exam
- Additional for PT 418: Passing grade on orthopedic and neurological qualifying exams
Learners must also upload standard documentation requirements to CastleBranch in order to participate in clinical education experiences. Sites may also require additional documents (e.g., additional background check, drug screening) and/or trainings prior to starting a clinical experience.
Documentation of completion of all required trainings must also be submitted prior to being cleared to attend clinical experiences. All students receive instruction in the utilization of standard precautions and infection control procedures for the prevention of the transmission of blood borne pathogens, airborne diseases, and infectious illnesses.
Establishing New Clinical Sites
Intensive effort is made to select clinical sites that will provide a rich learning environment for our learners. The DCE is responsible for developing and maintaining partnerships with all clinical sites, and the DCE and A-DCE are often working with several clinical sites at various stages in the process of establishing agreements. Rather than contacting a site directly, learners should recommend any new clinical sites to the DCE, who is best placed to determine if the site meets the learning needs of learners in the program, is able to provide high quality clinical education, and has or needs an affiliation agreement with the University. A Training Affiliation Agreement (TAA) must be in place prior to any clinical experiences.
Assigning Learners to Clinical Sites
The DCE makes placements primarily through a lottery system from learners’ site preferences lists. Learners should not contact sites on their own to ask for placements. Academic and clinical learning needs are paramount, so assignments are made in with input from core faculty (i.e., whether a learner’s educational needs are likely to be met at a particular clinical site) and may take into consideration: availability of clinical site placement offers; learner preferences and clinical interests; whether the clinical site will contribute to the student’s ability to be a generalist practitioner and will contribute to the student’s exposure to a diverse patient population; hardship requests including proof of documented accommodations required in clinical settings; clinical site applications and/or interviews.
Once all site placement offers are confirmed (most sites reserve a set number of opportunities for our students), the DCE provides a list of options available for each clinical experience so learners can create their preference lists. Some sites only have “first-come, first-served” placements, and all learners are given the opportunity to express interest as soon as possible, though given their time-sensitive nature, the placement may no longer be available when the DCE contacts the site to request the assignment.
You can review information about all of our clinical partner sites through the Exxat system, Clinical Site Information Forms (CSIFs), and previous students’ comments about the sites in the Student Evaluation of Clinical Experience & Instruction Forms. Links to all of these forms are available in your cohort’s Clinical Education Portfolio on the CLE. Site information includes the types of patients treated, staff and student resources, housing, meals, parking, the need for a car, etc.
While every effort is made to place learners in one of their preferred sites, this may not always be possible as multiple factors play a role in the final clinical assignments. Learners may sometimes be financially or geographically inconvenienced by their assignments, as the DCE tries to best serve the educational needs of learners while managing the ongoing relationships between the program and its affiliated clinical sites. Assignments may sometimes change due to cancellations or other circumstances, and learners will be reassigned as soon as possible.