Abstract:

Experience in clinical departments is an essential aspect of training for therapeutic radiography students and provides them with vital opportunities to apply their theoretical understanding to real patient care. These extended placement blocks vary in length from a two week placement, to up to 10 weeks and require students to work alongside qualified staff, gaining skills and completing clinical assessments.

These placements can be challenging for students as they are often required to live away from family and friends, work shifts and engage in complex scenarios while still completing academic and clinical assessment tasks. Support for students on placement is provided via several mechanisms across the UK ranging from regular visits from academic tutors and on-site support from a dedicated clinical education team. Students are typically assigned mentors from within their clinical team and expect to receive support and feedback to aid their progression.

Historically there have been many reports of healthcare students being subject to bullying by qualified staff while on these placements. Indeed a 2016 survey by the Society of Radiographers highlighted the extent of bullying. Since the publication of these findings, the landscape of clinical education has changed due to the increasing use of hybrid teaching following COVID-19 restrictions and also due to increasing demand for more graduates from a dwindling workforce (for various reasons). Despite investment in mental wellbeing support systems, there is still a relatively large attrition rate from therapeutic radiography within the UK and there are concerns that bullying still remains a prime factor for this.

The aim of this study was to evaluate the frequency and impact of bullying on therapeutic radiography students while attending clinical placements. This study has also obtain suggestions from the participants for measures to reduced incidence of bullying in the clinical workplace.

This quantitative study utilised a survey method through the deployment of an anonymous online JISC-questionnaire and data about what bullying students have experienced, the form that this took, their subsequent actions and the impact of this on students was gathered. It also gathered suggestions from students about how best to combat bullying. By using a questionnaire we were able to harvest data from a much larger population than if interviews were used.

All UK therapeutic radiography higher education institutes were invited to participate in the survey and debriefing materials were included within both the "invitation to participate" email and the survey tool with participants directed to contact academic support tutors if they have been triggered by survey completion.

Quantitative data was summarised utilising descriptive statistics in order to answer the following research questions and compare with the responses to a previous study in this field:
1. What proportion of UK therapeutic radiography students have experienced bullying on clinical placement?
2. What form does bullying take?
3. What action (if any) do student therapeutic radiographers take after experiencing bullying?
4. What impact does bullying have on the student experience?
5. What measures might help to reduce the incidence of bullying in the clinical workplace?

It is hoped that the findings from the study can be presented along with context and clarification.

Keywords:

Education, resilience, placement experience.