Physiotherapy education - what are the costs?

85 Editorial There has been a shortage of physiotherapists since the introduction of the profession to Australia in the 1880s. Recognising the need for physiotherapists, by 1910 Victoria, New South Wales, and South Australia had commenced educational programs associated with their universities, followed later by Queensland, Western Australia, and the Australian Capital Territory (Chipchase et al 2006). Despite growth in education, the Department of Employment and Workplace Relations (2006) assessment is that the profession has been in national shortage for decades. These are in metropolitan hospitals, private sector clinics, and community health services, with more extreme shortages in rural and remote areas. Key specialist areas of practice in paediatrics, cardiorespiratory, critical care, and aged care are under stress, as are less attractive areas such as mental health. Private practice physiotherapists are concentrated where there are patients with the financial ability to pay, as public funding of private physiotherapy is limited to five visits per person per year through the Enhanced Primary Care program. Shortages create high workloads for those remaining, leading to stress and dissatisfaction, increasing staff turnover, burnout, and attrition To increase the workforce critical issues of resourcing education and the physiotherapists who contribute to education must be addressed. McMeeken et al (2005) reported, and the Productivity Commission report (2005) acknowledged, that many academic physiotherapists and clinicians contributing to education are working at extraordinary levels and for extended academic years in order to provide high quality learning experiences for their students. The educational process, particularly in the clinical environment, generally extends across the calendar year in contrast to the normal academic requirements of most university courses. Policy encouragement from Government through additional health professional places in universities, and university and local state and community initiatives have increased the number of physiotherapy students. Within well-established universities there has been a steady rise in student numbers. Since 1996 the number of universities offering physiotherapy has grown from six to fourteen (McMeeken et al 2008) with 19 entry-level programs in Australia in 2008. Programs are in the planning stage or under consideration at five additional universities. With the underlying workforce shortages and increasing attrition it is not surprising that both long established and newer programs have been challenged to find sufficient experienced academic and clinical physiotherapists as leaders and to teach students. To manage more students universities have placed additional demands on clinicians, increased class sizes and the length of the teaching …