Bullying of students

[Silkysplinter]

Thanks for the wise words G, I'll definately take them into consideration. I will also pass your reply to other physios who are also experiencing such behaviour.


Cheers, and a happy new year.

[gcoe]

Hi Silkysplinter et al.

You sound quite hurt and traumatised by your experience. I see things from the side as an educator so thought I might chime in with some thoughts I have had over the years with the supervisor-student relationship.

• There is a vast variety of personalities in our profession and for every negative individual there will be two really nice people to deal with who enjoy taking students and one fantastic individual who was “born to teach”. Perhaps you may have had particularly bad luck with the supervisors you got
  
  The Physiotherapy Culture
  
• Having said that it is worth remembering our origins. We are a female dominated profession that has fought hard to establish the status of physiotherapy against a male dominated and very paternalistic profession. In the anglosaxon countries in times when there were few career options for women other than teaching and nursing, physiotherapists had higher status than nurses. I think this produced a culture of career women, strong personalities that spent time battling for their status in the medical system, who had to endure a lot of flack from a paternalistic and controlling medical profession and struggled for autonomy. I know this is to a greater extent in the past but I think the residual culture remains.
  
• Physiotherapy had a military background – the profession grew hugely during and after the great wars. Again this has left a bit of a mark on the culture- we can behave in paramilitary hierarchical ways still.
  
• These influences create a pecking order with students sitting on the bottom rung. A significant minority or physiotherapists (and yes it is a minority) behave as one might expect to see in a paramilitary organisation. You get the same thing happening in nursing. And part of this hierarchical behaviour is picking on the underling.
  
• I was also a mature male when I trained and I think on the whole this situation was much worse then. However by far the majority of people were great to work with and seemed genuinely interested in me as a student.
  
  I am not trying to justify this culture or behaviour. However I think it is instructive and can help put such behaviour into perspective.
  
  Problems with Educating the Educator
  
• In general the physiotherapy supervisor is not educated to educate!. Very few in clinical positions who are expected to take on a student caseload hold any qualification in tertiary level teaching. I understand this is a bit different in the UK but in Australia and NZ there is no formal route for education. This is a very unsatisfactory situation that has persisted for too long. Until there are incentives for gaining education qualitfications eg, an accreditation system for supervisors with true reflection in pay rates for those who are accredited and do take students I don’t think this will change
  
• Universities – at least in our part of the world have to beg for placements – there is generally a shortage of core placements and as beggars we can’t be choosers. As an educator I know lots of fantastic supervisors who do a great job and then there may be the odd few I would rather not have as dealing with my students but I am not in a position to choose. We do what we can to influence our supervisors through feedback and offering informal continuing professional development
  
  What Students Can Do
  
• It is great when students report these problems with bullying. When a number of students have reported a problem with a particular clinician it gives the school a chance to address the issue not just with the supervisor but also with the hospital/clinical management. We need to encourage a culture that addresses that.
• intimidation and manipulative behaviour can be a two way highway. I have observed and been alerted to appalling behaviour on part of students. Because of the work culture this is much easier to address but it needs to be said that this happens.
• Sometimes the student lacks self-awareness of the effect they have on their patients and supervisors. I have seen situations where supervisors have become wholly frustrated with the behaviour of students that they "loose their rag" with the student - who may be baffled by the outburst. I am not trying to justify the supervisors behaviour but it can be understood and solution to the problem may sometimes lie with the student, not the supervisor.
  

When it comes down to it physios can be a great bunch of people to work with. Some workplaces are dysfunctional while others can be such rewarding places to work. I wouldn't make a decision not to pursue your career just on experiences you have had to date.