Curricular External Internships

These are those configures as academic activities integrated as subjects within one of the study plans, like the Clinical Stays, with 42 credits a year taught in 4th year.

In this subject students must carry out the following activities to achieve the corresponding competences:

CLINICAL PRACTICUM: development of activities in a clinical context related with the professional exercise in physiotherapy.

CLINICAL SESSIONS: analyse of a clinical case in order to get to know it, interpret it, solve it, generate hypothesis, verify data, reflect, complete knowledges, diagnose it and set objectives and treatment plan.

PORTFOLIO: gathering of documentary evidences and specific data which enable to evaluate the teaching and learning progression of each student.

CLINICAL SEMINARS: activities focused on the work on a specific topic, which enables to deepen or complement the contents of a subject.

To achieve this, there are a number of centres with agreements achieved, and with a total of 30 professors/mentors for the development of Clinical Practicum, and professors for the seminars and clinical sessions, as well as two coordinators.

Regulation

For an adequate management of the Clinical Stays the centre counts on a External Internship management procedure in addition to the University of Vigo regulation.

Beneficiaries and requirements

BENEFICIARIES

Students enrolled in the Bachelor’s Degree in Physiotherapy.
Students from other Spanish or foreign universities performing study stays in the Faculty through agreements.

Students assessment to the collaborative entity

The clinical Practicum will be carried out in the centres with an agreement under the monitoring of the responsible teachers and/or the clinical mentors. 5 rotation groups with 6 teachers per group will be established, including the different fields of Physiotherapy in a way in which its training includes the different pathologies which can be treated using Physiotherapy. Each Rotatory will last for 4 weeks in which students attend on the morning shift, where activities in a clinical context related with the Physiotherapy professional exercise will be performed under the monitoring of a teacher/mentor. Each teacher/mentor has 1 or 2 students in charge by rotation.

The Physiotherapy fields where the rotation groups are developed are:

Neurological Physiotherapy in Adults
Neurological Physiotherapy in Children
Osteoarticular Physiotherapy
Physiotherapy in other specialities or fields

For the allocation in the Rotation Groups (at the time of enrolment in the subject Clinical Stays) the student must prioritize the Rotation Groups (from 1 to 5), being awarded by preference based on the academic record average mark (according to the September 15, 2011, Resolution of the Department of Education and University Planning).

Students enrolled in the subject Clinical Stays (45 ECTS credits) will be divided into 5 Rotation Groups.

Coordinators will distribute students within Rotation Groups taking into account that not any centre is overcrowded and that there are exchange students.

Erasmus+ students from our centre which only take a part of the subject will be allocated to a Rotation Group once students taking the annual subjects have already been allocated; this allocation will be done taking into account their preferences, the average mark and the maintenance of the 1 or 2 students per teacher/mentor ratio. The following rotation groups will be prioritised: Neurological physiotherapy in adults, neurological physiotherapy in children and osteoarticular physiotherapy.

Incoming exchange students will be allocated in the rotatory groups in a way that does not change the ratio students/teacher.

In the event that a teacher, for exceptional reasons, is unable to teach for a certain period of time, students would be allocated if possible with another teacher from the same field and in the same population taking into account maintaining the student/teacher radio.

As not all the centres with a signed agreement are located in Pontevedra, students will have to travel to perform the clinical Practicum; due to this, when organising the Rotation Groups not only the fields but also the locations will be taken into account, so students do not have to travel further than necessary. To ease these trips, once the reclamations period has finished, there will be a period for students to exchange with others from the same Rotation Group or with others from a different one. This exchange will be communicated to the Clinical Stays Coordination in which the exchanging students consent will be recorded to proceed to the publishing of the final list and to send the students lists to the centres with agreements.

Academic mentors allocation

The allocation to the Rotation Group implies a teacher/mentor from the Centre assignation. These coordinators of Clinical Stays are the ones taking the academic mentoring of students.

Drafting and submission of the reports and final report

The partial reports will be made through the Portfolio, in which students must reflect on the teaching-learning process, and for this they should include information on the patient type, evaluation, methods and techniques used, reports made, etc. as well as the competencies they believed achieved in that rotary.

When finishing the Clinical Stays a Final report must be drafted, being a compendium of the partial reports.

The submission of this documentation must be carried out in the indicated dates at the beginning of the academic year to the subject Coordinators which will be in charge of its management.

Clinical Stays evaluation and grading

The Clinical Stays subject final mark will be composed by a 70% from the clinical Practicum, 20% from the clinical sessions and a 10% from the seminars and the Portfolio.

Clinical Practicum: a systematic valuation of the student will be carried out by the teacher, who will collect data on his/her participation, taking into account the attitudes and skills achieved, being a 70% of the clinical Practicum mark (49% of the total). In addition to this there will be a final test at the end of each rotatory in which students must perform a valuation, set goals, and establish and execute a treatment plan, having this a value of the 30% of the clinical Practicum mark (21% of the total). The teacher will indicate students at the end of the rotatory its continuous evaluation and exam marks, highlighting their weaknesses and strengths from this valuation so students can reflect and improve in the following rotatory.
Clinical cases sessions: on the one hand, the clinical cases overview will be evaluated taking into account the diagnostic evaluation, goals and treatment plan, expositive clearness, and use of audiovisual media, and on the other hand, the participation on the discussion of their mates’ clinical cases. It counts the 20% of the Clinical Stays.
Seminars and Portfolio: there will a systematic evaluation on the student participation and interest in the seminars development and in the portfolio drafting. It counts the 10% of the Clinical Stays.

In the Study guide from each academic year the necessary requirements for students to achieve to pass the Clinical Stays subject will be established.