Pre-registration clinical placements

Overall, 2021 has seen our placement teams in all disciplines navigate the ongoing challenges and organisational changes that have presented in the COVID-19 climate. Our staff have seamlessly adapted to these changes and managed a significant increase in student numbers and placement days from the previous year.

The survey responses from our students have validated the enormous input and dedication of all staff to ensure that students in all areas have had the best possible experience while on placement in our organisation. Many of these students have been so impressed by the placement experience within their specific disciplines that they have applied for and been successful in gaining employment at Peninsula Health.

2021 Clinical placement days by education provider (source: PlaceRight) 2021 Clinical placement days by discipline (source: PlaceRight) 2021 Clinical placement days by site (source: PlaceRight) 

Monash University | 79%

Chisholm Institute of TAFE | 15% Other | 6% Nursing & Midwifery | 53% Medicine | 34% Allied Health | 11% Pharmacy | 1%

Radiography/Medical

Imaging | 1%

Frankston Hospital | 76% Rosebud Hospital | 5%

Golf Links Road

Rehabilitation Centre | 6% The Mornington Centre | 8%

Integrated & Community

Health Centres (various locations) | 5%

OVERVIEW

Peninsula Health provided 51,396 clinical placement days for 2,971 students from 18 disciplines in partnership with 16 education providers in 2021. Placements were offered across all sites and student activity remained high for the year despite pandemic-related restrictions, furlough and isolation requirements and service delivery changes.

In partnership with our education provider partners, placements were moved, models were changed to include telehealth and remote learning and cancellations were kept to a minimum. In accordance with DHHS guidelines, our placement capacity was prioritised for final year students to enable completion of their requirements for graduation and entry into the workforce.

79% of our clinical placement days were completed by students studying with Monash University. This reflects our strong primary partnership with Monash University, providing healthcare education to our community on the Mornington Peninsula. This is in addition to our increasing collaboration with them in research and education activities. As our secondary partner, Chisholm Institute provides access to clinical placements for many students in our local community.

As large workforce groups with significant requirements for hospital-based training, it is not surprising that Nursing and Medicine account for a considerable portion of the placement days provided at Peninsula Health. Many areas were severely impacted by COVID19 restrictions such as physical distancing requirements, telehealth and working from home.

76% of our clinical placement days were conducted at the Frankston Hospital site. Community placements were particularly affected by the COVID19 pandemic, but we were pleased to be able to offer more community placements in 2021 compared to 2020. Placements at all sites were conducted in accordance with the Peninsula Health COVID19 Safe Plan and DHHS directives.

LEARNER EXPERIENCE

Feedback on the learner experience is collected via an anonymous online survey link which is open all year for all students. In 2021 we were pleased to have had a much higher response rate to the survey (n=1009, 34%) and the feedback provided us with valuable insights into our learner’s placement experience. Staff are to be congratulated on the welcome, sense of safety and learning opportunities that were provided to our students:

97%

Agreed or strongly agreed that they were satisfied with their placement.

98%

Agreed or strongly agreed that they were welcomed into the organisation.

99%

Had an overall sense of wellbeing.

96%

Agreed or strongly agreed that they were valued as a learner.

What our learners say about their experience

“Thank you for making my first placement such an enjoyable and enlightening experience! This has definitely made me feel like I am in the right field of study and I look forward to completing more placements with Peninsula Health and hopefully one day work with Peninsula Health!”

“I felt so welcomed and included at this placement, and formed a bond with not only patients but with co-workers too. Enjoyed coming in to every shift and learnt so much, including medications, conditions, how to care for patients with different conditions etc.”

“This was by far the best placement I’ve ever experienced and hope to one day gain employment here.”

“Placement was really insightful and a good hands on experience as well as a really eye opening experience. I was really well supported by educator and staff at facility. I felt comfortable asking questions and making mistakes and learning from them. Overall a great learning experience.”

“PH staff have an amazing reputation for being so welcoming and supportive, I’m happy to say that this has absolutely been lived up to over this placement! I felt more like part of the team and less like a student on this placement.”

“This placement has been very rewarding yet challenging, all the staff members were willing to teach me and showed great respect and friendliness.”

“I had a really enjoyable experience. Going into placement I was really reconsidering whether I had made the right career choice, however everyone was super supportive with everything. I did not think I would improve so much in terms of confidence and skills wise in such a short time.”

“Plenty of opportunities for me to expand my knowledge and skills. The staff were amazing and provided great feedback.”

Although the feedback was largely positive, there were some areas for improvement in relation to access to resources (mainly swipe cards and IT), and students did feel the impact of the COVID19 pandemic and associated restrictions.

“Had a great experience. Disappointed that covid impacted our ability to spend other time on different wards, but relieved placement still went ahead!”

“Overall I thoroughly enjoyed this placement. Was slightly disappointed to have witnessed some bullying behaviour from staff members about other staff members but apart from that it’s been a great learning experience.”

“Lots of opportunities to learn, would value debrief sessions with all class mates to listen to what everyone else has learnt but I understand that COVID makes it difficult, otherwise great experience.”

“Always felt welcomed and valued... The negative was not having swipe access to enter and exit the ward.”

91% 90%

Did not experience or witness bullying.

Agreed or strongly agreed that they had sufficient access to resources.

ALLIED HEALTH ASSISTANTS AND PHYSIOTHERAPY

Allied Health Assistance placements ran as scheduled in the first half of 2021 – and we were able to assist education providers to get through some of their 2020 backlog. However, we had to cancel a couple of placements during the COVID peak in November due to restrictions upon students in residential aged care facilities (Transition Care Program) and staff redeployments in community areas.

Physiotherapy maintained a continuous student program throughout all of the national blocks in 2021 with few disruptions - mainly in community areas due to staff redeployments. We were excited to host Monash University’s first cohort of Doctor of Physiotherapy students – first for clinical immersion visits in the areas of neurological and cardiorespiratory practice, and then as they returned for their first core placements later in the year. We were able to successfully offer some remote paediatric placements and blended musculoskeletal placements (face to face inpatients; remote telehealth outpatients) with the support of remote IT access for students.

Finally, our recent cardio students had the opportunity to assist with a first at Peninsula Health – a lung lavage. The students joined a large team of physiotherapists providing chest physiotherapy during the procedure spanning some 3.5 hours. A unique and valuable clinical education experience with exposure to a procedure typically only undertaken at specialist hospitals such as The Alfred.

MEDICINE – THE PENINSULA CLINICAL SCHOOL

2021 has been another challenging year for the medical students with very little opportunity for face to face teaching. Access to see inpatients and outpatients due to room capacities and exposure risks, and opportunities to see patients in person for history taking and examinations continued to be limited. Students were able to link into virtual ward rounds and telehealth appointments. Lectures were held online and to compensate for the shortages in clinical placement, essential simulated clinical skills sessions were increased.

Opportunities for additional clinical placement was provided during the extended semester break as well as after the exam period in November. Many students opted to take up these additional learning opportunities. The omicron variant placed additional strain on the hospital system which resulted in hospitals employing a number of medical students as Clinical Assistants over the summer. These positions provided excellent learning opportunities for our students and it was great to see a number of them apply for these positions.

Overall students performed very well in their end of year exams. We were proud to see a number of Peninsula students rank in the top 20 of a cohort of over 400 students. Student satisfaction has continued to increase at Peninsula Clinical School, despite the limitations caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Our 3rd year cohort will increase from 36 to 42 students in 2022 with all of the 42 opting in to Peninsula Clinical School. A number of the students placed with us in 3rd year this year have also opted to return to PCS for their 4th year of study in 2022. A number of our final year medical students applied for Internship at Peninsula Health and we look forward to welcoming them back as Interns in 2022.

MUSIC THERAPY

The music therapy service provided placements for two Masters of Music Therapy students from the University of Melbourne (20 days each). The students provided much needed music therapy in the mental health service, across 1 West, 2 West and Carinya, and with community-based clients. The students and their supervisor tackled challenges related to coronavirus restrictions and provided a high-quality clinical service, as well as a safe and supportive learning environment.

NURSING AND MIDWIFERY

Nursing and Midwifery have seen a 20% increase in placement days, evenly spread across Registered Nurses, Midwifery and Enrolled Nurses. The Monash @ Peninsula program has been expanded for 2022 to include Midwifery students. This gives them the opportunity to access the majority of placements at Peninsula Health and hopefully apply for their graduate year with us.

The Clinical Support Nurse model was reviewed after a successful trial, and has been expanded for 2022 to include support for all levels of novice learners and new staff. Recruitment has been completed and Clinical Support Nurses will be allocated to specific clinical areas to enhance their working relationship with the clinical staff in those areas.

Strengthening partnerships with our major partners has continued over this year with Monash and Chisholm requesting the majority of our student placements during the 2022 DHHS Planning phase. Student capacity in our clinical areas was reviewed and increased for 2022 along with the introduction of 7-day rostering for students. Utilising areas such as Radiology and Pre-admission clinic compensated for the reduction in some community services. Final year students were allocated to work in the COVID-19 wards and were given additional support, including psychological support and encouragement to help them through this placement. Physically distanced debrief sessions were held in smaller groups for shorter periods and utilised outside areas including the botanical gardens.

Continuing Professional Development days were provided by Monash Centre for Scholarship in Health Professions Education (MCSHE) for Clinical Support Nurses and preceptors. The workshops presented covered the areas pertaining to supervision of learners and providing feedback.

OCCUPATIONAL THERAPY

Despite ongoing challenges due to COVID, Occupational Therapy were able to offer the majority of our usual placements in 2021. Some cancellations were required due to limitations in students working in high-risk areas at the time, however most of these placements were able to be relocated at a later date. Delayed placements meant Occupational Therapy student placements occurred from January through to December in 2021. Occupational Therapy was able to offer remote access to some students for the first time, supporting placements to continue and offering greater flexibility for both students and staff.

NUTRITION AND DIETETICS

The Dietetics department hosted placement for the entire 54 students allocated to Nutrition & Dietetics throughout 2021. The ongoing COVID-19 environment presented a number of challenges particularly in terms of physical space and very limited ability for our students to move across sites. The opportunity for our students to have, for the first time, remote access had a positive impact on the clinical placements in that they were able to spend some time offsite completing notes and/or participating in online meetings and activities. Despite the challenges our students were able to successfully complete clinical, food service management (FSM) and public health placements within various settings of the Health Service.

Some of the projects the FSM students managed to complete included:

• Safe & Supported Eating, Drinking & Mealtime Assistance project

• Evaluation of the Mental Health inpatient menu and menu selection process

• Review of the Inpatient Cook Fresh & Cook Chill Menus

The last project was completed remotely by two groups of international students who were in Singapore and Malaysia respectively. The Public Health students worked on a range of projects including:

• The Community Plate: The Community Plate is taking a Collective

Impact approach to bring people together, and drive action aimed at strengthening the local food system and improving healthy eating outcomes in the Frankston City and Mornington Peninsula region.

• The Community Plate Evaluation: The main aim of the project was the implementation of The Community Plate evaluation plan by: – Developing appropriate tools to support evaluation data collection for key indicators – Conducting data collection or collation for relevant indicators

• The Community Plate Social Marketing: The main focus of this project was to support the social marketing activities of The Community Plate.

This included data collection and analysis from the preliminary target group engagement strategy and the development of the evaluation plan.

Several staff were nominated by the students for Inspiring Educator Awards including Shannon Thomas(TMC), Janet Tam (FH) and Zhoe Warrington (FH), with Jasmine Everist from TMC winning the overall award in the clinical stream.

PHARMACY

In 2021, 64 undergraduate pharmacy students attended placement at Peninsula Health equating to 609 placement days. The placement program has received highly positive feedback from our students. A combination of on-site and remote learning was utilized given the ongoing pandemic to successfully complete placements.

Research placements are undertaken by final year pharmacy students to enhance their research and inquiry skills, putting theory into practice with a local based project supervised by our pharmacists. Three projects were completed by teams of students in the clinical setting and all will be published in peer-reviewed journals.

PODIATRY

Following an interrupted year in 2020, the Podiatry Department experienced a significant boost in student placements in 2021 as we hosted 15 podiatry students, across a total of 218 clinical days - a record high for our department. Our placement structures were adapted in compliance with COVID-19 staff density and movement limits to ensure minimal interruptions to planned placements. We also worked closely with our education providers, LaTrobe University and Charles Sturt University, to regularly negotiate placements at late notice due to cancellations with other health services.

PSYCHOLOGY

During 2021 Psychology has continue to support Clinical Psychology and Neuropsychology placements, despite the impacts of COVID-19 on the healthcare network. Specifically, there has been a notable increase in placements offered in Mental Health services, where there has been a threefold increase in the number of placement days completed between 2019 and 2021. We have achieved this by establishing partnerships with multiple different education providers, as well as implementing a strategy to support more senior psychologists in obtaining supervisor status with the Psychology Board of Australia. We look forward to growing our placement program again in 2022!

RADIOLOGY

During 2021 Radiology was able to take on more students than in 2020 and were able to assist the partner universities in facilitating make up placements.

SOCIAL WORK

Social Work placements continued to operate within our Hybrid Placement model in 2021, with students from our Education Partners (Deakin, RMIT and Monash Universities) working within a placement model that typically sees our student groups learning three days per week, onsite and two days per week, at home. During these two days at home, students focus on Quality Improvement work, self-directed learning and completion of their university assessment tasks. Each Friday, our students attend an interactive seminar with the Student Coordinator and throughout the placement block, they also have a number of guest speakers attend, with a broad range of

content being covered – from Mental Health, Community Care, Family Violence, Child Safety and Neuropsychology. Other topics covered include Family Meetings, Application of Social Work Theory and Job Readiness.

2021 has seen the development of a rigorous Social Work Student Placement Framework, which has resulted in a streamlining of processes, with regards to how Social Work Placements are accessed and coordinated, across the whole of Peninsula Health. This has led to a significant increase in our placement capacity for 2022, which is very exciting!

Social Work placements occurred (and will continue to occur) in three blocks in 2021, with our first group commencing in February and our final group of learners finishing up in late December. Our placement dates are in line with the Monash University Trimester dates and we are thankful that our other Education Partners have amended their placement date blocks, to match the Monash University placement structure. This means that all students join us on placement, as a peer group, which enriches both their learning experiences, as well as creating a support network to lean into, throughout the duration of their five hundred hour placements.

We are really proud of how many of our 2021 students have joined us as employees, throughout the past 12 months. Some of our team members have initially started out with us, as Allied Health Assistants, whilst they finished their Social Work studies and others have completed placement and commenced in Social Work Graduate positions. We believe this is reflective of their positive placement experiences, as well as the Best Practice Clinical Learning Environment offered at Peninsula Health.

SPEECH PATHOLOGY

Speech Pathology continued to offer student placements throughout 2021 thanks to innovative learning models, highly adaptable and creative speech pathology clinical educators and strong university partnerships. The team was honoured with four Outstanding Clinical Educator award nominations and one winning nomination by the University of Melbourne, reflecting the success of the year.

Clinical education brings together our many and varied teams across community and inpatient settings in a mutually meaningful way, our increasing focus on nurturing continual skill development in our educators will place us well for 2022 and beyond.