Comparison of Clinical Locations

CLINICAL EDUCATION COMPARISON

Clinical education plays a large role in most healthcare related fields. It allows students to gain real life, hands on experience with patients in a controlled environment that benefits both patients and students. However, even though clinical education is a requirement in many programs, and many programs have the same set goals/required competencies, different universities often carry out these experiences in vastly different ways.

One example is the nuclear medicine technology (NUMT) program offered by Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia and the nuclear medicine technology program offered by the Michener Institute of Education at UHN (University Health Network) in Toronto, Ontario. The clinical education portion of Dalhousie's NUMT program is an ongoing process, carried out from the second term of the students first year until their graduation. During this process, students will begin by attending clinical sessions once a week during the first-year winter semester, before moving to a full-time clinical education experience for the spring semester. During their second year, students will attend clinical once a week for both the fall and winter terms before again attending clinical full-time for their second-year spring semester. During third year, students are in the hospital three to four days a week during their fall and winter semesters before again moving to their full-time clinical practicum in the spring semester. During their fourth year, students will again be in the hospital three to four days a week in both the fall and winter semesters as they finish their degree.

This differs greatly to the program that is offered by the Michener Institute in Ontario. During their first year of the program, students in Michener’s NUMT program are not engaged in clinical practice at all. It is not until their second year that they begin to take part in clinical education; during that year, students will have a total of six weeks of clinical experience during the fall and winter semesters. This clinical experience is offered in three, one-week blocks during both the fall and winter terms. Following their second-year winter term, they will the begin the majority of their clinical education, at this point students will be engaged in full time clinical education during three, 12-week semesters (second year spring semester, third year fall semester and third year winter semester) before they graduate.

The one similarity between these programs is that there is a list of competencies that all students must achieve in order to graduate. These competencies are not set by the universities, but are instead set by an outside regulatory body; in this case, the Canadian Association of Medical Radiation Technologists (CAMRT). These competencies touch on all portions of the clinical experience to show that the student understands how to properly carry out all imaging procedures, how to ensure safe, respectful care of patients in their trust, how to safely prepare the radiopharmaceuticals needed for patient use, as well as quality control and safety procedures.

(1) https://www.dal.ca/faculty/health/health-sciences/programs/undergraduate-programs/nuclear-medicine-technology/course-descriptions.html

(2) https://michener.ca/program/nuclear-medicine-molecular-imaging/