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Education of the future healthcare workforce has long been a partnership between university and healthcare sectors, with students learning under the shared guidance of academics and clinicians. Traditionally, academics have taught in the classroom and clinicians have engaged students at the patient bedside. Using a phenomenologically-oriented approach, this pilot project explored the experiences of clinicians who team-taught a theoretical subject in a classroom environment. Purposeful sampling of physiotherapy staff within a metropolitan healthcare organisation was used. Six clinicians were recruited and, prior to teaching, completed a blended educational program about higher education teaching and learning. The clinicians taught classes of twenty students within new classroom spaces co-located at the healthcare organisation, with curricula provided by the university. Two semi-structured interviews were conducted with each clinician at the beginning and end of the allocated teaching period. Transcripts from the semi-structured interviews were analysed and four themes emerged. First, physiotherapists initially identified as clinicians not teachers, but their perceptions later broadened. Second, the intention of teaching was patient-focused. Third, the balancing of multiple roles resulted in challenges for the clinicians; and fourth, the experience involved new immersion in digital media. This work explores a different form of educator role – likened to a pracademic – and supports the need for considered approaches to teaching and links between theory/education and practice to meet the demands of modern healthcare and university learning.

Victoria was the Australian state most significantly affected by the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, which caused significant disruption to Victorian health services. The aim of this case study is to describe the experience of the Victorian public health system in adapting to support allied health student education during the pandemic. Factors that affected student education were complex and dynamic, and included a decrease in traditional face-to-face learning opportunities due to a transition to telehealth, social distancing requirements, furlough of staff and travel restrictions. Impacts on placement capacity across allied health professions were highly variable. Strategies used to enable the continuation of student work-integrated learning (WIL) (also referred to as clinical placements or fieldwork) included an increase in remote placements and the use of technology. Enhanced communication between government and health service educators enabled rapid sharing of information and problem solving. At this time, the impacts on student preparedness for practice are unclear but may include deficits in interprofessional learning, clinical skills, increased levels of agility and enhanced resilience. This case study highlights the need for the health system to be adaptable and innovative to maintain the quality of student education, and the future allied health workforce, through the pandemic and beyond. What is known about the topic? The COVID-19 pandemic caused significant disruption to Victorian health services and consequently their ability to support WIL for students during this time. The pandemic created risks for continuity of student learning and future allied health workforce supply. What does this paper add? The challenges that Victorian public health services faced to support student education during the pandemic were complex and dynamic. This paper describes the ways in which health services adapted to optimise the capacity and quality of student education. What are the implications for practitioners? This case study highlights that a focus on student well-being and a high level of problem solving for health services were required to support student learning during the pandemic, and that enhanced communication between government and health services supported the rapid sharing of innovations. These strategies can be used to support quality student WIL through the pandemic and beyond.

Health professionals operate within time and resource constrained environments, which can create barriers to engage in learning. There is increasing recognition that a large proportion of learning in the workplace is informal, unstructured, and occurring in the absence of an educator. The experiential nature of workplace learning, environmental constraints, and part-time health workforces require that learning be accessible, flexible, and engaging.

In this article, we aim to add to the existing literature on practice-based education. First, we will present a form of situated learning, which involved piloting a new teaching and learning relationship between the university and healthcare setting. Second, we will examine how students made sense of this perspective of practice. Using a phenomenologically oriented approach, this pilot study explored the experiences of entry-level physiotherapy students learning in a classroom environment, facilitated by clinicians, and located on a healthcare partner’s site. Twenty students completed two concurrent, theoretically oriented subjects that did not involve traditional clinical practicum experience. Two individual semi-structured interviews were conducted with students. Data was thematically analysed using an inductive approach. Three inter-related themes emerged. First, meaning-making is enhanced by the relevance and authenticity afforded by immersion in a practice-oriented classroom environment where clinicians facilitate learning. Second, learning from those ‘in practice’ challenges students’ professional and academic accountability. Finally, new educational infrastructures influenced students’ agency in unanticipated ways. This work highlights that students valued contextual learning. While meaning-making was enhanced by the development of key new relationships with others and the environment, these relationships also influenced student agency. Recommendations for health professional curricula are discussed, and include: capitalising on learning with peers, bringing the hidden curriculum into view and creating opportunities for students to navigate uncertainty and change.