Background: A form of education called Interprofessional Education
(IPE) occurs when two or more professions learn with, from and about
each other. The purpose of IPE is to improve collaboration and the
quality of care. Today, IPE is considered as a key educational approach
for students in the health professions. IPE is highly effective when
delivered in active patient care, such as in clinical placements. General
internal medicine (GIM) is a core discipline where hospital-based
clinical placements are mandatory for students in many health
professions. However, few interprofessional (IP) clinical placements in
GIM have been implemented. We designed such a placement.
Placement design: The placement took place in the Department
of Internal Medicine at the CHUV. It involved students from nursing,
physiotherapy and medicine. The students were in their last year before
graduation. Students formed teams consisting of one student from each
profession. Each team worked in the same unit and had to take care of
the same patient. The placement lasted three weeks. It included formal
IP sessions, the most important being facilitated discussions or
"briefings" (3x/w) during which the students discussed patient care and
management. Four teams of students eventually took part in this
project.
Method: We performed a type of evaluation research called formative
evaluation. This aimed at (1) understanding the educational experience
and (2) assessing the impact of the placement on student learning. We
collected quantitative data with pre-post clerkship questionnaires. We
also collected qualitative data with two Focus Groups (FG) discussions
at the end of the placement. The FG were audiotaped and transcribed.
A thematic analysis was then performed.
Results: We focused on the qualitative data, since the quantitative
data lacked of statistical power due to the small numbers of students
(N = 11). Five themes emerged from the FG analysis: (1) Learning
of others' roles, (2) Learning collaborative competences, (3) Striking
a balance between acquiring one's own professional competences
and interprofessional competences, (4) Barriers to apply learnt IP
competences in the future and (5) Advantages and disadvantages
of IP briefings.
Conclusions: Our IP clinical placement in GIM appeared to help
students learn other professionals' roles and collaborative skills. Some
challenges (e.g. finding the same patient for each team) were identified
and will require adjustments.