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Ethical Case 2: Susie’s fieldwork site is a very busy acute care hospital…
Ethical Case 2: Susie’s fieldwork site is a very busy acute care hospital in a large city. The OT staff consists of 25 OTs and OTAs. Due to maternity leave and unfilled positions, there are only 20 OT staff members. Susie’s fieldwork educator is stressed and has given Susie a full caseload in her third week because she is “doing so well”. Susie feels overwhelmed and believes she is not getting enough supervision.
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Have Susie talk to her fieldwork educator directly and tell her that she is overwhelmed with the caseload and needs more direct supervision since she is only a student.
Decision for putting this action step in place & why: This would be the most direct way to address this issue before getting higher authority personnel involved.
Proceed to option #2 if the dilemma does not resolve after option #1 of discussing concerns directly with fieldwork educator
Professional and liability issues to consider:
It is unethical to have Susie treat clients without supervision because she is a student and not licensed to independently treat clients without adequate supervision
A liability issue could arise involving patient safety. When an injury and/or traumatic event could unexpectedly or unintentionally occur under Susie's care, without supervision from a licensed OT, that will cause harm to the client.
Have Susie report the dilemma to the Academic Fieldwork Coordinator (AFWC) or supervisor at her site location. Also have Susie contact her school’s fieldwork coordinator to notify them of the issue. They will be able to instruct Susie about how to address and resolve this issue
Professional and liability issues to consider: Due to the recent reduction in OT workforce, the site may not have enough OT staff to adequately accommodate hosting/educating a fieldwork student. This could result in Susie's loss of her fieldwork rotation at this site
Also, talking to higher personnel about this dilemma could compromise the professional relationship between Susie and her fieldwork educator, who is already stressed out due to the reduction in work force, and is trying to treat all of the remaining clients and that is why she cannot provide Susie with adequate supervision
Decision for putting this action step in place Yes, this step would need to be done if option #1 did not resolve the problem.
Why?: Susie would need to ask the site supervisor if there is enough adequate OT staff to host a fieldwork student due to the reduction in OT workforce.
Why?: Susie would also need to have her school's fieldwork coordinator aware of this situation of the lack of supervision that is due to the recent reduction in OT staff.
As stated earlier, if the fieldwork site does not have enough OT staff to provide adequate supervision to attend to the fieldwork student when they are treating clients, Susie may have to be placed at a different fieldwork location to prevent issues that would compromise patient safety
Susie's school would have to be in contact with the site supervisor to determine if Susie can continue her fieldwork rotation at this site location with the reduction in workforce.
If Susie cannot continue her fieldwork rotation at this site, her school's fieldwork coordinator would have to find a replacement site for Susie to continue her fieldwork rotation ASAP
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