Clinical Education is the portion of the student’s professional education which involves practice and application of classroom knowledge and skills for on‐the‐job responsibilities. This occurs at a variety of centers and includes experience in evaluation, patient care, administration, teaching and supervision. It is a participatory experience with limited time spent in observation.
The clinical education program in the Department is overseen, coordinated, and developed by the Director of Clinical Education (DCE) and at the affiliating facilities by the Center Clinical Coordinator of Education (CCCE). Each student will have one or more Clinical Instructor (CI) who is directly responsible for supervision of the student at each clinical experience.
The program has two basic types of clinical education experiences‐‐the pre‐clinical experience and the clinical affiliation. The Pre‐clinical experiences are designed to provide each student with an introduction to clinical practice in physical therapy and occur in semesters 3 and 4. Each student is required to complete long‐term clinical experiences during which entry‐level or near entry‐level competence in physical therapy is eventually attained. These experiences occur in semesters 5, 7 and 9. The opportunity exists for the student to develop an internship specific to his or her desire or needs resulting in a major project in addition to patient care responsibilities. These special internships will be referred to as a contractual. The terms “clinical experiences”, and "affiliation" will be used interchangeably in this document. Internship is defined as those experiences which occur after all didactic study has been completed. Chapman University students affiliate year round.
