1. 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

2. 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…

3. 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!

4. 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….

5. 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,

6. 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

7. 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

8. 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