Professional courses - A student perspective Emma Clarke Goodmorning everyone, my name is emma clarke iv been asked to give a student perspective on placemenet. Trinity College Dublin 2nd Annual Disability Service Symposium

University Background 2003 – Dental Science in TCD – Dropped out 2004 – Physiotherapy in TCD – Qualified 2009 – Returned to Dental Science as a Mature Student. Currently – about to commence final year So I cant do this without mentioning the very long journey I have had through college…

Transition 2nd – 3rd Level Applied via the DARE scheme Supports in place – Note takers, FM system “The First Day” Story Did not see myself as having a Disability Did not want to be singled out or made feel different from rest of the class. Decided the course was too hard – dropped out. I think I need to rewind even further to explain how I have ended up here, so in a nutshell… Applied via DARE, Did disclose, put supports in place, didn’t see myself as having a disability – went to mainstream school, I thought I was just shy, college – I knew!

Physiotherapy New course / new start Another health science course Still the challenges of placements & dealing with the public. Lectures – accepted the supports. Work with them rather than against them so that is my college background in a nutshell, but the focus of today is placements so let me share some of my experience in that field….

Placements Physiotherapy - Completed 1000 hours clinical practice in the four years – over five different sites. First placement – AMNCH – Elective Orthopaedics So firstly in Physio.. We completed 1000 hours over the 5 years,

Pre Placements- Prep Wards – Noise Introducing myself to patients Communication with patients – should I inform patients? Communication with team members – would I slow procedures down? Not wanting to burden senior Use of supports on placement Starting in a new site – repeating the process. So I know this slide seems like a cluster.. But im trying to portray how much is going through your mind when you first start.. I also feel that all of these scenarios are true for almost all students but for students with disabilities some are more of an issue… before we started we had a general talk on what to expect and how placements would work

Dental Science (Take 2!) Learned from previous placements Communication – non issue New skill set required Disclosure – second nature – reciting of medical history New challenges – dental mask, new supervisors, nursing staff Routine in the Dental Hospital Confidence, Biggest advantage I have in Dentistry was routine and same people

Advice to practice co-ordinators Case by case No recipe approach Ensuring free channel of communication Encourage to disclose when necessary Pre placement advice essential The advantage of staying between the two main sites for core placements Re-checking Re-checking takes a while to break that barrier between student and professionals, after a while it has to be in the students hands