Preceptors
Interested in mentoring VPIL students at your clinical site? We’re excited for you to join the team! Keep reading to learn more about the experience of being a preceptor.
JOIN US!
Please complete this preceptor agreement to confirm your participation.
What role do preceptors play in VPIL?
As a preceptor, you’ll provide guidance to a four-person interprofessional team throughout their year at your site. The team will spend most Wednesday afternoons in clinic, although one session each month is usually reserved for a classroom seminar facilitated by a separate group of VPIL faculty. We anticipate approximately 20 clinic sessions each academic year (August – April).
What does this look like on a daily basis?
Each clinic has its own unique workflow, space, and patient needs. However, there are a few things that we like to encourage our preceptors to incorporate into their VPIL afternoons:
Pre-brief
The beginning of clinic is a great time to discuss the day’s patient load and patient needs, as well as get pumped up about the afternoon!
If you’re unable to be in clinic one session, please provide a back-up colleague to work with your student team.
Debrief
At the end of clinic, the students should debrief about any tough cases, celebrate the successes of the day, share their profession-specific perspectives, and hear any feedback from you.
Assignments
Throughout VPIL, students will be assigned complete weekly patient logs, several clinical reflections, and two big projects. A separate group of VPIL faculty will collect and assess these assignments, but we do ask preceptors to:
- Help the students identify a patient for their Home Visit project.
- Help the students identify needs within your clinic to target through a quality improvement project.
Throughout your time together, you may also encourage the students to research your patient population, the specialty of your clinic, or a specific procedure. We’ll also ask you to fill out individual student assessments twice a year.
Over time, we expect students to bring value to the clinic as they progress from beginning to intermediate to advanced learners. Our hope is that within these two academic years the students will build trust not only with you as their preceptor, but also with your clinic staff and the patients.
We also know things can happen and change. If something happens and you cannot complete two full academic years (August – April) as a preceptor, we are always willing and ready to work with you.
The VPIL Voice
For a taste of what our preceptors do, take a look at the recent issues of The VPIL Voice, our preceptor newsletter.
Capstone
At the end of the year in VPIL, students complete a Capstone project. This project is designed to provide positive change for both patients and providers. Each team will work together with their preceptor to choose a quality measure that is essential for the population of patients in their clinic. Quality measures are tools that help ensure patients receive high-quality care and include things like smoking cessation counseling, referrals for diabetic eye exams, and mammograms. With the guidance of their clinical preceptor, teams will formulate a small-scale intervention aimed at increasing the percentage patients who satisfactorily meet the criteria set by the measure. Their work will be presented as an academic poster at a Capstone event at the end of the year. Each team will have a VPIL faculty member assigned to them as a “Capstone Coach,” who also help them to navigate this process.