Background: Emergency medicine (EM) in North America has been undergoing significant transformation since the new century. Recent health care reform has put it center stage. Access demand for acute care is increasing at the same time the number of qualified emergency physicians entering service has reached a plateau. Physician assistants (PAs), one alternative, are employed in emergency departments (EDs), but little is known about the impact of their role.

The complex challenge of evaluating the impact of interprofessional education (IPE) on patient and community health outcomes is well documented. Recently, at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study in the United States, leaders in health professions education met to help generate a direction for future IPE evaluation research.Participants followed the stages of design thinking, a process for human-centered problem solving, to reach consensus on recommendations. The group concluded that future studies should focus on measuring an intermediate step between learning activities and patient outcomes. Specifically, knowing how IPE-prepared students and preceptors influence the organizational culture of a clinical site as well as how the culture of clinical sites influence learners' attitudes about collaborative practice will demonstrate the value of educational interventions. With a mixed methods approach and an appreciation for context, researchers will be able to identify the factors that foster effective collaborative practice and, by extension, promote patient-centered care.

No abstract

Purpose The purpose of this article was to measure and compare depressive symptoms among physician assistant students during didactic and clinical phases. Methods Students (n = 123) completed the PHQ-9, and responses were scored in 2 ways (PHQ-2 and PHQ-9). First, submissions were deemed positive and assigned a severity if question 1 or 2 scored 3 or above (PHQ-2 method). Second, all submissions were summed and assigned a severity (PHQ-9 method). Results Using the PHQ-2 method, 8.13% of students screened positive; using the PHQ-9 method, 98.37% screened positive for at least minimal depression. Almost half (47.15%) of the students reported mild to severe depression. No statistically significant differences were observed in total scores between classes (P = .1849). Statistically significant differences were observed when we examined feeling tired with little energy (P = .0028) and trouble with sleeping (P = .0436). Conclusions Implementing routine depression screening of trainees and restricting the number of clinical work hours could help combat increasing fatigue. Earlier intervention and resources for students struggling with depressive symptoms are needed.