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<p>In the case of Occupational Therapy fieldwork, if they weren’t functioning as a therapist by the time they finished, they didn’t pass. That was the goal. However, as I noted, I was still in the room during their therapy groups. They were still closely supervised and all of their treatment plans, charting, assessments, discharge summaries, etc. had to be reviewed before it went into the medical record and co-signed by me. I wouldn’t be able to ethically do that if I wasn’t present during each session. They definitely didn’t take the place of staff. There was still daily supervision to provide feedback, even when they really good. Student teaching is the same way, from what I understand. The student teachers may do the lesson plans but the supervising teacher reviews them, discusses them, helps the student revise them as suggested and is present while the student is teaching to interject and provide more feedback as needed. The educational component is there as it requires discussions about how the theories learned in class are applied to the job in real situations. </p>
<p>If they weren’t ready to be an entry level therapist by the last 3 weeks, as I said, they couldn’t pass. I always knew by the mid-term evaluation whether they were going to make it or not. They did receive a grade. How it is structured makes a difference.</p>
<p>I’m definitely not arguing that all internships follow that kind of model. Most do not. I think more should and employers would feel more comfortable hiring new grads knowing that they’d done that job, with intense supervision and modeling. Too often, the interns are the gophers and get no real value aside from knowing how to work the coffee pot and copy machine.</p>