Clinical Directors - one university, one community college

I was so surprised out how fast my teachers responded (and that they remembered me!). I asked several different people about the clinical director position at their schools. The first response back was from my 2nd year "mother hen" at UNC. Here is her reply (in a nutshell):

We have 2 clinical "coordinators"- one for first year and one
for second year.  This is only one of their duties.  They also carry a
full teaching load, just like everyone else.  I am, as of this year, no
longer the senior clinic coordinator (wheee).  It is a lot of extra
work. 
Duties include:  creating student clinical schedules, arranging
clinical rotation sites, developing and coordinating those rotations,
problem solving clinical issues, calibration of clinical faculty,
calibration of students, teaching the clinical didactic courses,
development of the evaluation systems, recording and maintaining
clinical student records, clinical academic advising, student mediation,
developing clinical forms, (I probably could go on forever).  These are
the main things.
Most protocols are initiated by the coordinator, but are tweaked
and approved by the entire dh faculty.  We don't coordinate the clinical
supplies, sterilization , etc. because we are in a dental school and
that is taken care of through our Clinical Affairs department.

Even though there are two clinical coordinators at UNC - the duties are similar to those here at UMN. I
specifically asked about the sterilization & supplies - because I had a hunch that someone was in charge
of that!

My other contact was my local anesthesia teacher. She works at a community college in Arizona - another
awesome teacher - and very quick responder of questions! Here is her reply (in a nutshell too!):

We have 1 program director and 2 clinical coordinators (our version of
directors).  Our coordinators are also resident faculty members.  I am the
first year clinical coordinator and Mona Latimer is the second year clinical
coordinator. Our duties are pretty much the same as we are responsible for
entering grades, keeping track of clinical competencies and watching to make
sure we don't run out of supplies.  We have a very competent person who takes
care of all the ordering, maintenance, inventory and storage of our supplies.
We all work together to make sure the students have what they need to succeed.
Our staff has formed a 'learning community' of sorts and we communicate every
day.  We are able to meet student issues head on and immediately before they
become extreme problems. We manage the sterilization, protocols and policies
together. Most of the polices were in place when I arrived so all I had to do
was to 'tweak' things as I went along.  I feel fortunate to have the
environment I have here.  There is an 'open door' policy among the instructors
and our constant communication is definitely a benefit to our students.

I wasn't surprised at the difference. It seems that the duties at the community college
are much better "distributed amongst the ranks"!

I can't wait to see what everyone else found out!

My First Blog

Here we go!