Rhona Anderson appointed Director of Clinical Education

The Department of Occupational Science & Occupational Therapy is pleased to announce that Rhona Anderson is the successful candidate of the recent search for an Assistant Professor, Teaching Stream, and appointment as the Director of Clinical Education.  

Anderson joined our department more than 20 years ago as status-only faculty, as part of her full-time clinical position in an affiliated teaching organization. Since then, she has held a variety of roles, including teaching assistant, lab coordinator, sessional instructor, and Acting Director of Clinical Education while continuing education leadership roles within the clinical community. She became a part-time faculty member in 2021 while working on a doctoral degree.   

In this role, Anderson will continue to work with students and clinical education partners (including site fieldwork coordinators, preceptors, and education leadership) to guide the planning and implementation of high-quality teaching and learning experiences related to clinical education.  

“I’m excited and thrilled to be working with an incredible, skilled fieldwork team, and I’m looking forward to seeing what we will achieve together in the support of students’ practice learning,” she says.  

With this full-time appointment, she anticipates having more opportunities to work on research. Anderson’s research interests include student leadership development, particularly in collaborative interprofessional clinical contexts.   

Anderson is also currently collaborating with other faculty members on research related to the learning experiences of students who identify as having a disability, as well as research that uses an equity, diversity and inclusion lens to understand dialogue that occurs between preceptors and students. “Overall, student learning in the field, or during clinical education, is an understudied area and these areas of research will help to fill that gap,” she says. “And that is so important, given that student occupational therapists spend more than 1000 hours learning in the practice setting.”