Alternative Clinical Training During the First Year of COVID-19 Pandemic: Students’ Experience

The COVID-19 pandemic ushered in widespread restrictions that impacted clinical and academic settings. These restrictions required music therapy educators to not only shift their teaching platform but to find methods to engage students in the continued development of their clinical practice skills through practicum experiences while clinical sites were closed. To provide alternative practicum experiences, three music therapy faculty at a major metropolitan private university offered Telehealth Practica (THP) for undergraduate and graduate students in the first year of the pandemic. Music therapy faculty facilitated individual or group sessions with 10 clients to provide ongoing practicum experiences for students over the course of two semesters. Twenty-two students participated in five focus group interviews to share their experiences of THP. Using a thematic analysis, 14 themes were identified, and through further latent analysis, five attributes of the THP model: accessibility, usefulness, uniqueness, limitation, and potential were developed. THP offered students a new and novel learning opportunity that is not experienced in traditional in-person practicum, and they identified this as a valuable and unique training option. THP experience highlighted the need to develop student competencies and skills related to the use of technology for telehealth delivery, as telehealth has become a new norm and will be one of the ways health professionals continue to provide services in the future.