Challenging Relationships

When students are keen, enthusiastic and seize opportunities for learning the experience can be exciting and rewarding for all parties. Occasionally this is not the case and clinical placements can be extremely difficult, frustrating and challenging. For students these experiences can be devastating and extremely exhausting. For clinical supervisors these experiences can draw upon many skills.

Becoming labelled, either as a poor student or poor supervisor, is not helpful and can have detrimental effects. Ultimately labelling leads to an ineffective clinical experience. It is more helpful to consider the facts of the situation by answering three questions;

What is the problem?

How and where does it show?

Whose problem is it?

How could we move forward?

Pinpointing the exact problem, identifying how and where it shows, is often relatively straightforward. However it is more difficult to acknowledge that the problem may not necessarily lie solely with the student, or what actions need to be taken to address the situation.

As adults, most students and supervisors will adopt an independent approach for dealing with problems that arise during their practice programs. The majority of problems that exist between students and supervisors result from inadequate communication and are easily rectified.

If however, either party believes his or her rights are not being respected, this is regarded as a serious problem and action should be taken immediately.

• Both parties should agree to a time to discuss the problem issues.
• Seek academic support if the issue is not resolved. The academic will facilitate a second meeting between the supervisor and the student and the group will work towards possible solutions and actions.