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RESPCARE 575 Practicum

Course Overview and Objectives

RESPCARE 575 Practicum is an elective in the MSRC Program that serves as an alternative culminating experience to Capstone.

The Practicum allows the licensed, credentialed Respiratory Care professional to apply what they have learned in the MSRC program to specialty clinical roles they have entered in their work environment. Clinical settings can include hospitals, specialty units, clinics, sleep labs, pulmonary rehabilitation, management, outpatient care, or higher education. The student will report on their progress regularly in the clinical setting and produce critical analyses of cases, clinical challenges, and interviews related to that clinical activity. They will develop an annotated bibliography and a narrative review on a topic related to the clinical work, along with a poster and oral presentation to share with fellow students and faculty.

MSRC students are licensed and credentialed as RRTs and practice as a respiratory therapist in a variety of medical settings. Respiratory Therapists, who are MSRC students, are often called upon to orient to new positions and practice in specialty settings that can create fruitful academic learning experiences when the experience is paired with academic work under the supervision of an MSRC faculty member. The clinical experience can be used to provide a culminating clinical experience as a Practicum under the 2023 CoARC Degree Advancement Standards. Types of activities might include, but are not limited to, the following:

  • Transition to practice programs that include rotations in specialty areas of the hospital;
  • Orientation to specialty critical care units such as the NICU, Trauma ICU, and Neuro ICU;
  • Extracorporeal membrane oxygenator team;
  • Critical care transport;
  • Support of invasive pulmonology;
  • Pulmonary rehabilitation;
  • Pulmonary diagnostics;
  • Sleep Labs;
  • Management teams;
  • Clinical educator roles;
  • Care navigation roles; and
  • Clinical research coordinator.

The clinical specialty role can begin at any time during matriculation in the MSRC Program, but must be ongoing in the final Summer semester. It does require a contract to be signed by the student, a supervising mentor at the facility, and the MSRC faculty mentor and Chair.

Prerequisites:

  • Submission of Individual Practicum Learning Contract 
    • The student, in consultation with the clinical site supervisor and Boise State MSRC faculty, will develop a plan for the practicum experience to include tasks that will be required, hours per week the student will commit to in the practicum, criteria for performance, and topics for the academic deliverables required in the objectives. This must include full names, credentials, phone and email contact information, and signatures of the student, site supervisor/mentor, and Boise State faculty. The student will also determine what credentials to prepare for related to their area of clinical work. Students who already have a credential in the area can opt out and support a fellow student who is seeking that credential. The Practicum Learning Contract is to be submitted to the MSRC Program Director for their approval and signature for the practicum to take place.
  • Approval of the MSRC Program Faculty Mentor and Chair

ESLO Integration: Note: students must complete mastery assignments that align with mastery assignments within Capstone to include the following:

  • ESLO # 1: Professional Communication
    • Poster reflecting key lesson(s) learned in Practicum; This may be a case report or case series from practicum experience, a key topic investigated, or data obtained from clinical or management experience in practicum.
    • Oral presentation describing practicum experience and/or key lessons learned.
    • Narrative Review of topic related to the practicum experience
  • ESLO #4: Evidence-Based Inquiry
    • Annotated Bibliography for Narrative Review 
  • Link to a final Google Site outlining all mastery-level assignments.

Course Learning Objectives:

  1. The student will produce a log of hours spent for each module, clinical experiences encountered, professional interactions with teammates, successes, and opportunities for improvement with goals and plans to meet those goals.
  2. The student will develop 3 care plans or clinical challenges over the course of the practicum experience related to the role. This will include a deidentified description of the patient’s history, physical exam, and pertinent lab and radiology results, and a comprehensive plan of care to include primary respiratory concerns and possible multi-system implications of the care plan, including holistic, social, and ethical concerns.
  3. The student will select a credential relevant to their area of clinical specialization and, based on the matrix, develop a plan of study to successfully challenge that credential exam. Students who already have a credential in their area are exempt, but will assist fellow students challenging that exam.
  4. The student will provide an analysis of interprofessional team function through observations and interviews with at least 2 teammates. This will include an assessment of team function with strengths, weaknesses, and opportunities for improved team function.
  5. The student will produce an evidence-based annotated bibliography for the final narrative review to meet the mastery assignment for ESLO #4.
  6. The student will create a poster that highlights some aspect of the practicum experience that could be shared at a State or National Meeting.
  7. The student will create an oral presentation describing a key experience or overview of their practicum and deliver it to classmates and faculty.
  8. The student will develop a 10-page narrative review suitable for publication in Respiratory Care on a topic related to the practicum experience. 
  9. The student will complete a reflection paper documenting his/her professional development during the experience. This will include leadership lessons learned, challenges overcome, and opportunities for improvement with future plans.

Course Organization:

This course has been designed in seven (7) modules of 2 weeks each, designed toward the final objective of demonstrating mastery of Program ESLOs #1 and #4 and completing study for an advanced credential in the area of clinical practice. The course modules and assignments include the following elements:

Clinical Practice Updates: There will be one for each module to include:

  • Hours worked in clinical specialty.
  • Brief description of challenges addressed.
  • Reflection on that module and goals for the next module.
  • Convenient times to check in with faculty mentor if needed.

Discussion Forums The initial DF will have each student in the course describe their plan and share thoughts with fellow students. Subsequent modules will have students share experiences in Discussions to include patient education issues, ethical concerns, quality improvement suggestions, team function, and a final reflection on the Practicum experience.

Clinical Challenges will be one-to-two-page reports on a challenge they faced in clinical, which they want to share. This will be in the form of a Blog (DF format in Canvas). Students will be expected to comment on 2 other student challenges and respond to students who post on their threads.

Interviews with a colleague in their area of work include an exchange of what they do and a summary of the discussion. These will be reported as summaries of the conversation in 1-to 2-page Word documents.

Credential Review: Students will seek an appropriate credential in their area of practice and develop and follow through on a plan to prep for that credential exam. They may opt out of this requirement if they already have a credential in the area of work.

Final Deliverables will be:

  • Annotated Bibliography on literature found to support Narrative Review to be submitted in Module 3 Week 6.
  • A 10-page Narrative Review suitable for publication in Respiratory Care based on a topic of interest in their area of work.
  • Presentation of 15-20 minutes on that work.
  • Poster on a topic related to clinical work.