Specific Details Pertaining to Site Supervisor Responsibilities
The Site supervisor's primary role is teaching. Site Supervisors assist the student to integrate and apply knowledge from their foundational courses incorporating the information into internship situations. Site Supervisors also stimulate decision making through questioning the student regarding their observations and reasoning. This process assists the student to reflect and describe their assessment and recommend strategies. Additionally, Site supervisors assist the student to become more accurate and complete in their communication with the healthcare and academic team. The Site supervisor has the opportunity to model interpersonal relationship skills with colleagues, superiors, and subordinates. Site Supervisors can model behaviors to navigate the health care and academic organizational system such as experiences with students, peer faculty, and educators. Furthermore, the Site supervisor models the role of an educator and an interdisciplinary team member.
Communication with Faculty
While Site supervisors are encouraged to contact the faculty at any time, Site supervisors should initiate contact as soon as possible for situations involving a student's unsafe practice, unethical conduct or any changes in the Site supervisor's availability to precept. Any agency concerns should also be related to the faculty.
Faculty report these instances to the Dean.
Communication with Student
Site Supervisors are encouraged to provide regular feedback to the student including brief discussions of the student's daily performance, as well as midterm and final evaluations. Site Supervisors are encouraged to relate concerns to the student at the time of occurrence for the student to rectify any concerns as soon as possible.
Evaluation of Student
While the faculty assumes ultimate responsibility for the formal written evaluation, the Site supervisor's input will provide supportive evidence for the ratings. Site Supervisors are in a position to collect data that gives evidence of student competence. Also, Site supervisors have an opportunity to support professional practice standards and the credibility.
Observations of the student's performance should be compared with practice standards, validated with faculty, and shared with the student. The student's response to your day-to- day feedback also becomes a part of the Site supervisor's evaluation data.
Site Supervisors should remember that they do not fail students or stall a student's progress. Instead, the student's performance either meets or fails to meet criteria.