Model for rural and remote speech pathology student placements: Using non-traditional sites and partnerships

• Published in: The Australian journal of rural health 2011-02, Vol.19 (1), p.52-53
• Main Authors: Jones, Debra, Grant-Thomson, Diena, Bourne, Elizabeth, Clark, Paul, Beck, Honor, Lyle, David
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Cooperative Behavior; Employment; Female; Health; Health services; Humans; Male; Medically Underserved Area; Models, Organizational; New South Wales; Nursing; Partnerships; Pathology; Rural communities; Rural Population; Speech; Speech-Language Pathology - education
• ISSN: 1038-5282; 1440-1584
• DOI: 10.1111/j.1440-1584.2010.01177.x

The Broken Hill University Department of Rural Health (BH UDRH) operates a successful multidisciplinary rural clinical placement program in far western New South Wales.1 However, until recently, the development of allied health programs had been constrained by the region's limited access to allied health services and their capacity to support students. There are few placement opportunities nationally across the UDRH network for allied health disciplines such as speech pathology (22 students in 2008/2009; J. Ramsay, pers. comm., 2010). In Broken Hill, local primary school teachers and parents had raised concerns about the lack of paediatric speech pathology services and the impact this was having on educational attainment. We proposed a novel solution using a clinical education model2 structured around student-run clinics3 in the primary schools. The development relied on non-traditional partnerships with school education, a commitment by speech pathologists from the Area Health Service to allocate time for clinical supervision and work by BH UDRH staff to engage academic partners from a feeder university, recruit students and manage the placements. Adapted from the source document.