Some Comments to get you started

Some comments to get you started

Well done in getting your Blog set up. I trust that you will find this a rewarding process and much better than the written exam that the GEM6 Final group last year had to sit!!!!

Below are some thoughts that were posted by Rick Ladyshewsky to a group of 4th year students who were having some difficulty in knowing the depth that they needed to reflect. Essentially you are required to put up some reflections about your clinical experiences during the January and February placements. Any clinical issue that you have found particularly challenging or rewarding is useful, but as Rick indicates below it is important that you go beyond just describing the clinical scenario, but also reflect on what you felt about it and what you have learnt from it. I will post some examples on physiolink in the Bulletin Board of reflections that students put up last year to help you get started.

Good Luck

Peter

Dear Students. One of the things I have noticed about your contributions which could be enriched is more commentary from your own perspective on what your personal thoughts and actions might be with respect to your professional practice decisions. Whilst it is good to state the issue and your concerns and possibly even the action you have taken, rather than leave it wide open for input, offer some of your own clinical decisions, thoughts, ideas in the Blog. This will give everyone a bit more insight into how you are structuring your thinking, and enable others to look at what is missing, what are great ideas, what could be developed further.

The ideas I have brought forward above will increase the reflective nature of your contributions as opposed to what I have been reading which are issues that you have identified.

When we talk about reflective contributions we are talking about....1. Looking at the experiences you have encountered.....2. Reflecting on that experience and trying to identify what you felt, what you learned, what you didn't know, what you didn't understand, what went wrong, what happened.....all these review components......3. Making conclusions about all of this...having gone through the experience and reviewed it comprehensively.....what decisions or outcomes are evident and 4........ How are you going to change your practice or do things differently (or not) the next time you encounter this experience. This kind of disclosure will help your peers to look at your thinking and make even more informed comments.