Difficult conversations in fieldwork education

Occupational therapy (OT) students complete their clinical education within fieldwork I, and fieldwork II experiences (FW) under the supervision of OT practitioners, referred to as FW educators. FW educators play a critical role in building occupational therapy students’ clinical and professional skills. Without their mentorship, didactic coursework is incomplete, if not moot. FW educators can facilitate solid clinical education and be perceived by students as motivating, inspiring, or helpful. Unfortunately, FW educators can also hinder clinical education and be perceived as intimidating, unfriendly, or closed-minded (Grenier, 2015). When FW educators lack cultural humility (Brown & Norris, 2019) or display behaviors of incivility and bullying (Bolding et al., 2020) and racism (Beagan et al., 2022), FW educators can be barriers to students’ learning.