Physiotherapy clinical educators’ perspectives on a fitness to practice initiative

ABSTRACTContext: Health practitioner registration boards require health professionals to evaluate and maintain “fitness to practice” (FTP). This encompasses the professional behavior, clinical competence, and freedom from impairment required for safe and effective service provision. We developed and implemented policies to promote student self-assessment and support of FTP that were pre-emptive and designed to be helpful and sought clinician feedback on this initiative. Method: An innovative student-centered FTP approach was devised with consideration of defensible ethico-legal practice. A survey explored clinical educators’ perceptions of the FTP policy and the associated education and support. Closed and open survey questions were analyzed using descriptive statistics, qualitative evaluation, and thematic analysis. Results: Seventy-nine physiotherapy clinical educators from 34 sites across eight Australian health services returned surveys. Educators had positive perceptions of policy components, particu...