Clinical Educators in Occupational Therapy

Hello everyone! I teach Gross Anatomy and Neuroanatomy to OTD students, and I’ve been reflecting on the persistent challenge of translating classroom knowledge into clinical practice.

In my classroom, we’ve moved beyond just textbooks, we use cadaver labs, tech applications, and integrated simulations to make the material as real as possible. However, I still see a significant struggle when students transition to the clinic. They can identify structures perfectly in a lab setting, but that confidence often disappears when they need to perform surface palpation or apply functional anatomy to a living, moving patient.

I’m curious to hear from the clinical educators in this group:

1. In your experience, where is the biggest knowledge drop-off between classroom preparation and actual clinical application?

2. Are there specific anatomical concepts (e.g., nerve pathways, joint mechanics) that students seem to 'lose' the moment they step into the clinic?

3. What can we do in the classroom…

   
   

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This group are for clinical educators in occupational therapy of whom's interest is to implement learning and pedagogical measures for students to develop their clinical reasoning in occupational therapy working in internships, and enable transfer regarding new knowledge between the education and practice. 😀 This group is also a platform to have some professional sparring and exchange experiences regarding students in internships as a clinical educator.

Hello everyone, My name is Yi-Lin and I am an Occupational Therapist Clinical Coach in New Zealand. I am interested to connecting with you all and to find out what your Clinical Coaching and Educator roles look like in different countries around the world. I work at a rehabilitation hospital and the main group of Occupational Therapists I coach are in their first two years of graduating from their Bachelor's degree. Our patients are mainly older adults (over 65 years) and have a combination of physical, mental health and cognitive difficulties. Our aim is to provide rehabilitation to discharge patients home (if possible). My role is a 2 year fixed-term position, so I have been trying to gather some data to evidence that having a Clinical Coach is beneficial and develops clinician confidence, and ultimately provides improved service provision to our patients. I wondered if anybody had any work/data/evidence that they ha…