Preceptor Orientation Strategies for Professional Athletic Training Students Before Beginning Clinical Education

Context To successfully prepare novice athletic training students (ATSs) for patient care during clinical education, preceptors must orient ATSs to their role as health care providers. Effective orientation is important before beginning clinical education to clearly outline expectations, roles, and responsibilities of the ATS. Despite the importance, orientation is often inconsistent, leaving novice ATSs with unclear expectations and confusion as they begin clinical education. Objective To explore how preceptors use orientation to prepare professional ATSs to begin clinical education. Design Consensual qualitative research. Setting Individual interviews. Patients or Other Participants Fourteen preceptors (34 ± 9.6 years old; 11.6 ± 9.7 years of experience; representing the secondary school, collegiate, and hospital practice settings) who supervised at least 1 professional ATS within the last 12 months participated. Interviews were conducted until data saturation occurred. Main Outcome Measure(s) Data were collected via semistructured interviews, which were recorded and transcribed verbatim. Using a consensual qualitative method, data were independently analyzed by a 3-person team, who independently coded the data and compared ideals until consensus was reached. Credibility was established through multimember triangulation and external review. Results Overall, participants emphasized the importance of orientation to establish clear expectations regarding patient care and effective communication. Four themes emerged from the interviews: (1) roles and responsibilities, (2) communication and interpersonal skills, (3) professionalism, and (4) confidence. Conclusions Many preceptors fail to adequately use orientation to outline expectations and responsibilities to facilitate student success. By providing effective clinical education orientation, preceptors can establish clear expectations within their setting, cultivate communication and interpersonal skills, and improve professionalism and confidence. Thus, it is imperative to facilitate adequate site-specific orientation for professional ATSs to minimize confusion regarding their roles and responsibilities in providing patient care.