Abstract
This paper examines the notion of clinical supervision and takes a close look at what it means from the perspective of both the supervisee and the supervisor, considering how it can be of benefit to the learner, the teacher and the patient. Clinical supervision has been shown to be vital for the development and consolidation of undergraduate and postgraduate education, while having a positive impact on patient outcomes and as such is a fundamental component in healthcare education. Central to supervision is achieving the best outcomes for the supervisee, and effective supervision ensures the development of confidence, professional identity, and the consolidation of therapeutic knowledge. Clinical supervision provides a platform for extending the supervisor-supervisee relationship beyond the student-teacher model to one of mutual personal development in contemporary knowledge and skills for clinical practice. Despite the perceived importance of clinical supervision for healthcare more broadly, there is evidence to suggest that few supervisors are adequately prepared with the theory and practice of clinical supervision to adequately fulfill the expectations that the role entails. It follows therefore, that in many cases, there is an expectation that the health professionals will supervise without adequate preparation. This paper, although not a panacea, may assist those who are supervising and who seek or require some guidance and support.
Highlights
Before we can begin to unpack the nuances of clinical supervision for effective implementation, it is essential to understand what is meant by supervision in healthcare, and the many differing names, definitions, functions and models
This work represents a critical review of the available literature concerning clinical supervision in an effort to fully appreciate the diverse nomenclature, definitions and models of supervision in healthcare
The definitional challenges suggest that the search for a single definition that is appropriate for each clinical setting, specialist discipline, and is able to inform the various models of clinical supervision that are common in practice is foolhardy
Summary
Before we can begin to unpack the nuances of clinical supervision for effective implementation, it is essential to understand what is meant by supervision in healthcare, and the many differing names, definitions, functions and models. Finding that Senediak and Bowden [22] attribute in part to concerns that the incorporation of these best-practice approaches to teaching and learning might expose the current apprenticeship model as being less than the gold standard As well as those in medicine, other models of supervision can be found in literature from other discipline areas such as nursing, social work, and counselling.[2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10] For example, there are models such as ‘narrative-based supervision’, ‘incidental supervision’ and ‘peer supervision’ each of which has their own idiosyncrasies. Full-text articles published in languages other than English were not reviewed given the issues associated with translation qualities
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