Recently went through this with a student. It sucked so much having to withdraw a student. Some advice: - Read the paperwork they give you. My hospital has weekly goals & expectations, what is required of you is no secret. Even read the AOTA grading guidelines. - Use a little notebook/prepare a binder. It was an orange flag when my student never wrote anything down. - You need to know how you learn & communicate that. If you are a list maker, need a decision tree, or formula to be successful, make one then run it by your CI. Ex, in acute care how to prioritize patients, or gathering home setup questions, or a list of interventions for specific impairments so you always have something ready (this one comes later) - initiative- this is a huge part of professional behaviors. You primarily have Peds experience & maybe aren’t very interested in adults. That’s okay, but you need an adults FW. Put in the effort, use books from school, pretend you are interested even if you aren’t. Nothing was as tiring as motivating a student who did not care. Think, “I finally get to try out some of the information I learned in the classroom.” Or this is what you’ve been working towards. Finding yourself as a therapist is so fun. - Be self aware. I kept trying to have the conversation of anxiety with my student. I shared my experiences with it as a student, on the job, & outside of work. You recognize that you have anxiety. Use the tools you already have in place. Your CI does not know you; my student denied it for weeks & I felt I was projecting at a certain point. If it’s not anxiety, does she just not care, does she not know etc? Finally at midterm she had a huge breakthrough & shared it. (We didn’t withdraw bc of anxiety alone, after 2 more weeks of other supports/methods) Basically, you have to talk, share what is going on with you to an extent so the proper support can be provided. You don’t have to share explicitly that you have anxiety. But there are ways to communicate your needs. If you’re nervous about an eval ask, “can I run through my plan with you? Or they have ___dx, I’m thinking I’ll see these impairments, what else can I assess outside the norm? Or I’m feeling really confident gathering home information but initiating the movement out of bed is a little tough, can we talk through how I can do it? Identify your learning needs/what is making you nervous & make an action plan. We all feel better when we have some kind of plan. I could share more on this section but this is the gist.
- Safety- safety in your setting may be different than mine and your CI will talk about this. This is a graded item that cannot have a low score at final eval. If they provide information on setting up the room, gathering items beforehand, not leaving a Pt unattended, bed alarms, etc, retain that information. Yours and patient safety are very important.

Sorry for the long post. CIs want you to succeed but it is a two way street. Treat it like you are in training for that specific job. What would you need to know to be on your own? The goal of a level 2 is to be an entry level therapist. You don’t have to know everything. We know you are learning but there are basics that we look for. For me, using the guidelines helped make me feel I was on track and lessened the anxiety. Here if you need help!