Abstract
It is frequently the staff educator who is assigned to manage clinical affiliations. It is important to know the regulations that apply to the various professions for which the staff educator is responsible.
Any agency planning to affiliate with the Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC) Medical Center for the purpose of placing students for clinical rotations must first sign an affiliation agreement with the Medical Center. The Medical Center consists of the Colleges of Nursing, Medicine, Pharmacy, Health Professions, Graduate Studies, and Dental Medicine. The MUSC Medical Center is a 596-bed tertiary care center that serves as a referral center for the state. The South Carolina State Board of Nursing requires no more than eight students to one faculty member in an acute care setting. The affiliation process is begun by contacting the office of the legal counsel. Contracts may be for 1 to 5 years or may be ongoing. The contracts usually delineate such areas as:
* agency resources,
* qualifications of students,
* qualifications of faculty,
* student to faculty ratio,
* accountability for patient care, and
* amount of professional liability required for faculty and students.
The various colleges are encouraged to submit clinical requests approximately 1 year in advance because there is fierce competition for clinical units, especially in areas such as pediatrics. The contracts also delineate the student health requirements. (A sample contract available from the author on request.) The clinical educator and the legal counsel's office each keep copies of the contracts, and the clinical educator reminds the legal counsel if a contract is near the time of termination. These include academic contracts with other colleges at both the associate degree nurse (ADN) and the baccalaureate nurse (BSN) levels, as well as contracts for RN refresher students. Contracts for other professionals such as medical laboratory, respiratory therapy, occupational therapy, and respiratory therapy are also handled by the clinical educator. It is important to be sure that competing nursing programs are not simultaneously on the same clinical units-this is confusing for the nursing staff because student assignments may differ for each program, particularly those in different educational programs (Rodriguez, 1996; Seigel, 1998).