Talking to your supervisors

Hi everyone,
Hope everyone’s new pracs are going well! I’ve just started my paeds prac, and it’s totally different to what I was expecting!
The first week has gone fairly well, the kids are all really cute and pretty fun to work with, and the staff are all really nice. Unfortunately it’s a really unstructured prac, by which I mean in the first few days we (other PT student and myself) weren’t given any direction as to what we were meant to be doing or where we were meant to be doing it. Basically we were told scant details about where we had to be and when we were supposed to be there (and these details weren’t always correct), there just wasn’t very good communication between staff and ourselves. This meant we felt really lost and left out, we were just sort of wandering around the centre hoping to be in the right place at the right time. I also didn’t have a very good idea of what was expected of me (for treatments, assessments, reports etc), and I still don’t really know what kind of documentation I’m meant to be doing. I also had no idea how much knowledge I was expected to have, or how good my treatment skills were supposed to be-as I was supposed to be doing solo home visits in my second week!
All in all it been a strange situation, which is sort of understandable as the staff are all really busy, and don’t always have time to be holding our hands and guiding us, and it hasn’t all been bad, it just took the whole week to get orientated to how the centre worked.
I think the turning point was when our clinical tutor spoke to us and basically said that it was really important that if we felt lost or like we didn’t know what was going on that we talk to her or our supervisor, to clarify our role and what was expected of us, and she also gave us an idea of what she expected of us. I realized after this that they weren’t expecting the world from us but if they thought we were ready/able then they would increase our responsibilities. Also that it was vital that we talk with our supervisors about how we were feeling and whether we were confident/happy to do home visits on our own, and not to hold it in and get more and more upset and end up hating the placement.
So I spoke to my supervisor and got a good idea of what she wanted me to do/be able to do by the end of the placement, what kind of reports would be required and how long my presentation would have to be, what was involved in a home visit (i.e. length etc) and how I felt about going to a person’s house by myself.
I’m still not sure whether I’m ready to do solo home visits but I feel much more confident about this placement and what I’m doing, I don’t feel lost anymore. I am really glad that I sorted out the situation before it became more of a problem.

I think we all need to keep in mind that although good communication with our patients is really important, good communication with our supervisors is even more important, even though it’s not stressed as much during uni. If we don’t feel confident about what is expected of us, what our placement will involve and what we are supposed to do, then we won’t enjoy our placements and we won’t be effective therapists. So if something is upsetting you or you are unsure about something then talk to your supervisor/tutor about it, they won’t think you are stupid or wasting their time, they will be glad that you have dealt with the issue before it became a major problem!