September 2013 Director's Message

~by: Anne Fenety, Assistant Professor & Director, School of Physiotherapy

Photo by David Gamble, About iMage Photography Co.

The School’s most valuable assets are its human resources. Pictured above (wearing black), is one group of those human resource assets, namely the soon-to-graduate Class of 2013. As Director (wearing red), my most valuable management tool is to continually seek better ways to support our human resources. Beginning in this issue with the ELM students, and continuing in the next two newsletters, I will explore “How could the School better support our students?”

My analyses are drawn from anonymized ELM student feedback gathered in my various administrative roles in the School, including meetings with classes to ask ‘what can we do better?’ Below are compiled opinions of tens of dozens of ELM students focusing on three common irritants (tuition, time, and clinical placements) followed by questions regarding “what could be done?” I do this because I seek the collective wisdom of our knowledgeable, informed readers.

1. Tuition

Despite being frozen for two years, our physiotherapy tuition is the highest in Canada. We currently offer entrance scholarships from alumni donations and university scholarships, but these are very limited and do not include assistance for financial emergencies or for second year students. We also need to support a culturally and academically diverse student body by assisting students from low resourced communities and those with exceptional academic standings. Finally, at graduation, most students carry tens of thousands of dollars of debt load from six years of study. In this era of declining resources, a tuition reduction is unlikely. What could be done? Can we create a successful internal / external fundraising strategy to provide bursaries for financial emergencies, and to provide more scholarship opportunities for all ELM students?

2. Time

Our ‘full’ curriculum places heavy demands on students’ time, leaving few extended periods of study time and little time for family, friends, leisure, health needs, fitness, or part time jobs. This is a formula for unhappy, unhealthy, ‘unwealthy’ students. What could be done? Can we better distribute student workloads? Could we reduce curricular demands and give students more free time? This program has been in place since 2006 and is scheduled for a major curriculum review with the potential to inform changes about student and faculty workload distribution.

3. Clinical Placements

Given the high tuition costs and the reported difficulties of earning income while in school, students in clinical placements have three additional challenges: travel, paying rent in two places and finding accommodations, especially in small rural centers. What could be done? Could hospitals and clinicians help them to find suitable rental accommodations? Could we better utilize two-to-one and inter-professional placements that could put several Dalhousie students together in the same town where they could share accommodations and travel costs?

In the words of George Bernard Shaw, “Progress is impossible without change”. We can change. We can make progress. To that end, I have asked: “What could we do better”? The ELM students have spoken. Now, I welcome your questions, comments, and suggestions on how we can better support our ELM students. In the next newsletters I will pose the same question regarding our MSc Rehabilitation Research students and our former students (i.e. alumni).

Cheers, Anne