Where we are and where to next; clinical exercise physiology placement supervision

Introduction: Increased access to higher education and increased integration of work-based learning experiences into professional degree programs has led to a greater demand for high quality student placement supervision. Clinical exercise physiology is a rapidly expanding health profession and as such it is timely to capture the current state of supervision practice. The aim of this project is to report on the current clinical exercise physiology supervisory practices in Australia and to develop key recommendations for sustainable and high quality future supervision capacity.\ud \ud Methods: The link to an online, anonymous clinical placement supervision survey was emailed to clinical placement supervisors throughout Australia via nineteen participating universities. The procedures and the survey were approved by the James Cook University Research Ethics Committee and all participants provided consent by answering 'yes' to the 'agree to participate' question at the start of the survey. The survey remained open for six weeks, took approximately 20 minutes to complete and included select-a-response and free-text questions across five key areas: supervisory experience, characteristics of current practice, processes associated with supervision and developing competency, supervisor education, and demographic descriptors. Responses were analysed using a combination of qualitative (thematic) and quantitative (frequency and proportional) methods. \ud \ud Results: The survey was completed by 129 exercise physiology placement supervisors. Supervisors were mostly young, work most often in private practice, were predominantly located in metropolitan cities and have mostly been supervising for three or less years. Respondents were equally divided regarding whether they would like to and be capable of supervising additional students. Issues that emerged include documentation and reporting processes, competencies and assessment, communication across stakeholders, scheduling logistics, and cost (time, funds, resources). \ud \ud Conclusion: These findings have led to the development of sixteen recommendations for exercise physiology placement practice with a specific focus on assuring future high quality clinical placement capacity1.\ud \ud References: \ud \ud 1. Sealey, R., Raymond, J., Groeller, H., Rooney, K., Crabb, M., & Watt, K. (2013). Current practice of clinical exercise physiology placement supervision in Australia: 2013 report.\ud \u