Clinical Placement Procedure

AC-OCE-PRO-006
Clinical Placement Procedure
DepartmentAcademic
Approval DateJune 28, 2018
Effective DateSeptember 4, 2018

Purpose

The purpose of the procedure is to provide a timely, transparent and fair method of establishing and assigning student clinical placements to meet the educational requirements of their programs.

The goal of the procedure, barring any exceptional circumstance, is to ensure students are notified of the location of their clinical placements three months prior to the start of their placements.

Procedure

  • During the fall semester in the first year of each program a representative from the Office for Clinical Education (OCE) will hold sessions to review the clinical placement policy, procedure and pre-clinical requirements.  At that time, programs will be notified of the semester in which the clinical placement procedure will occur.
  • It is a professional expectation that students must declare any potential conflict of interest to the OCE that may exist for them at any clinical site. A conflict of interest is defined as, but not limited to, a family member or close friend of the student who has the potential of supervising and/or evaluating that student or who may have influence on the student’s placement or progression in the clinical phase of the program. The OCE will investigate the potential conflict of interest and make a final decision with respect to placing the student at that site.
  • By the end of the fall semester, the OCE will establish the expected number of clinical placements required organizationally for the cohorts of students entering clinical the following academic year.
  • Although recruitment of clinical sites is on-going, the OCE will continue it’s recruitment until there are sufficient placements for each student. Once the clinical sites for a program have been confirmed, the Office for Clinical Education:
  • Groups the clinical sites into regions and prepares the on-line system
  • Provides the students with access to the on-line clinical placement system where they can view the available sites for their program by region along with the number of placement allocations per region.
  • Prior to the region selections, the OCE will provide a demonstration of the on-line system for the students and also issue instructions to the students via email on how to access and use the on-line clinical placement application system. The students will be instructed to rank the regions according to their preferences by the deadline agreed to through class consensus.
  • The on-line clinical placement system is a 3-step procedure. In the first 2 steps, students rank the regions in order of preference and the system will match as many students as possible with their first choice.
  • The 3rd and final step is an electronic random ballot that matches each student who is not assigned a region in the first 2 steps to a region with available spots. A representative from the OCE conducts the electronic random ballot. In order to maintain confidentiality for students who are placed as a result of accommodations, the program Clinical Liaison Officer or designate witnesses the random ballot.

Should there be a failure at any point of the on-line clinical placement application system, then students will be required to submit their rankings in writing to the OCE. Should there be a failure in the electronic random ballot, the OCE will conduct a draw in the presence of the Program Clinical Liaison or designate.

All regional assignments are final.

Following the completion of the on-line clinical placement process, the OCE will assign the students to one of the clinical sites within their confirmed regions.  Students will not be placed at a clinical site where a confirmed conflict of interest exists or cannot be resolved.  These clinical site assignments are final and will be forwarded to each site Clinical Coordinator via email and copied to the students and the program Clinical Liaison Officer.

Associated Documentation

Revision History

Date Reviewer Change(s) Made
September 9, 2010 Don Bartlett Sydney Redpath Document created /adapted from existing procedure within MRS programs
September 23, 2010 Academic Operations Team Reviewed and Approved with minor recommendations
October 21, 2010 Academic Approval Council Approved
September 12, 2012 Suzanne Allaire Don Bartlett Changed to reflect the on-line process and revised Clinical Placement policy. Changed to delete reference to accommodations and special circumstances.
November 7, 2012 Academic Approval Council Approved
August 28, 2013 Suzanne Allaire Don Bartlett Amended
October 23, 2013 Academic Approval Council Approved
April 16, 2015 Don Bartlett Process to address conflict of interested added
March 23, 2016 Don Bartlett Minor changes in punctuation and wording for clarity and consistency
June 28, 2018 Don Bartlett Edits made timing of class visits and to the random ballot process