Editorial: Educational Perceptions vs. Reality; Classroom and Clinical Education

Abstract

A s a college student, I spent two summers working as a tour guide and an archeological excavator (the professional archeologists didn't like us calling ourselves diggers) at a historic preservation site in the Midwest. Our duties included attending a class three mornings a week on American History of the period and of our particular site. Our professor, a prominent university historian, began the first class with a statement that has stuck with me over the years; “History is not what happened. Rather it is what people think happened.” He then admonished us to study original documents of the period to discover what people of the day were saying, and by extension, thinking. There are two issues relating to athletic training education for which perception may be overshadowing reality. They are “educators vs. clinicians” and “the relative value of clinical vs. class room instruction.” My desire is to convince every athletic trainer to use language that does not perpetuate philosophies that I feel are detrimental to the profession. Knowing this is impossible, my hope is that I bolster the arguments of those who agree with me, and sway some who either are on the fence or have an opposing view to my way of thinking. The phrase “educators versus clinicians” has developed over the years to differentiate between those who hold academic positions as athletic training educators from those who hold staff positions as athletic training clinicians. Clearly these two groups of professionals have different roles and responsibilities; one group is mainly responsible for classroom and laboratory instruction while the other is mainly responsible for patient care. Innocent enough. The problem with these perceptions, however, is that they imply that clinicians are not educators. Some clinicians are not educators, but the vast majority are, especially those who function as approved clinical instructors in our accredited educational programs. Clinical education is a necessary part of our student’s education, and to state, or even imply, that those to impart this education are not educators is not only demeaning to them, but is absolutely false. They are educators and should be recognized as such. So if there is a need to differentiate between these two groups. I suggest we use the terms “academics” and “clinicians” Academics are those who hold academic positions at a college or university and clinicians are those who hold clinical or staff positions. But regardless of how Human Resources classifies an athletic trainer, if he/she is teaching students, he/she is an educator. There is much discussion about the relative value of clinical and class room instruction. Studies have been performed and opinion/editorials written. In a recent article in the NATA News , 1