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Public Clinic Evaluations

I'm hoping that some of you who hold public clinic hours for your students can help me out. We are in the beginning stages of opening one but are opening it up to just other faculty and staff for the first month to "get our feet wet". At any rate, I would like for every client to fill out an evaluation form at the end of their massage and this will count towards the students overall grade for this course. Do any of you use an evaluation form? If so, what kind of things are the students evaluated on?

I'm open to any other helpful hints and/or suggestions as well :)

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Lisa Mertz on January 5, 2011 at 3:21pm

Hi Melissa,

I've built 2 clinics in 2 community colleges. I have a form for the clients to fill out after the massage. It has the following questions on it with yes and no boxes to check and so forth to make it easy for them since they're usually in la-la land:

• Was this yourfirst time receiving a professional massage?

• When the therapist greeted you, was his or her manner professional?

• Was his or her manner professional throughout your experience? What happened?

• Was the LMT’s method of draping you comfortable for you?

• Was the LMT’s use of cream/lotion/oil comfortable for you,or was it too much or not enough?

• Did you ask the LMT to adjust the amount of lubricant? Ifso, did s/he comply with your request?

• Did the LMT’s massage pressure match your level of comfortor was it too light or too heavy?

• Did the LMT ask you during treatment if the pressure was suitable? Did he or she modify the pressure in response to your feedback? Comments?

• Was the LMT’s intake interview with you adequate?

• During the treatment, did the LMT adequately address any specific pain or discomfort areas you had indicated during your intakeinterview? Comments?

• Were your treatment goals met for this session?

For the clinical course itself, the students are evaluated overall on the quality of their documentation -- health histories, SOAP notes -- and their professionalism (as defined in our clinical manual) which includes how gracious they are with clients (client relations), whether they keep the space tidy, if they're dressed properly, on time, all that. And the client evals are taken into consideration in grading as well.

Best of luck with yours!

Lisa

Permalink Reply by Viktor Bek on January 5, 2011 at 5:38pm

Most of MT handbooks nowadays have instructor manuals which list competencies.

You may want to glean those (some can be up to 8 pages)

Make form short 1/2 - 2/3 page and focus on what the school/employers in your area find important

Allow for free space for clients to write comments in their own words.

In my experience if the total paperwork exceeds 3 pages people just ignore it or draw a line through the whole page.

Give yourself a freedom to use or avoid using them in grading:

sometimes biases can't be avoided,

and can get you in the tight spot when age, gender, race, relations etc affect the feedback you see on the page.

Cases like that are not a rule but some years are better than others.

( I had cases of former girlfriends, former-in-laws, neighbors with a grudge who would bring "friends" had a cordial chit chat and suddenly some of the best students would get ridiculous low marks on paper...)

Permalink Reply by Noel Norwick on January 5, 2011 at 6:38pm

I suggest that you check with businesses in your area that employ massage practitioners. The form that you develop should prepare students for what they will be dealing with upon graduation and may also include any specific questions that you as a teacher deem relevant. I agree with Viktor that less than one page is critical and that the clinic supervisor/instructor must evaluate recipient feedback for relevance & possibly bias.

Permalink Reply by Melissa DeFrancesco on January 6, 2011 at 7:11am

Wonderful suggestion and feedback everyone! Thank you soooo much for all your information.

Permalink Reply by Melissa DeFrancesco on January 24, 2011 at 2:12pm

I want to thank everyone again for their suggestions. I have one more question...do you have a specific release form that states "I am aware that the massage I am receiving will be given by a student massage therapist who has completed his/her educational requirements but has not taken a certification exam". Something along those lines....