Interprofessional Workshop to Improve Mutual Understanding Between Pharmacy and Medical Students

Abstract

Objective. To measure changes in pharmacy and medical students' physician-pharmacist collaboration scores resulting from a workshop designed to promote understanding of the others' roles in health care. Methods. More than 88% of first-year pharmacy (n 5 215) and medical (n 5 205) students completed the Scale of Attitudes Toward Physician-Pharmacist Collaboration on 3 occasions in order to establish a baseline of median scores and to determine whether the scores were influenced by an interprofessional workshop. Results. Participation in the interprofessional workshop increased pharmacy students' collaboration scores above baseline (p50.02) and raised the scores of medical students on the education component of the collaboration survey instrument (p50.015). The collaboration scores of pharmacy students greatly exceeded those of medical students (p,0.0001). Conclusion. A workshop designed to foster interprofessional understanding between pharmacy and medical students raised the physician-pharmacist collaboration scores of both. Crucial practical goals for the future include raising the collaboration scores of medical students to those of pharmacy students.

Critical Thinking and Reflection Exercises in a Biochemistry Course to Improve Prospective Health Professions Students’ Attitudes Toward Physician-Pharmacist Collaboration

“…17,18 At Midwestern University, we used the instrument to show that even a single workshop exercise to foster understanding between medical and pharmacy students led to a small improvement in their physician-pharmacist collaboration scores. 21 We also found, however, that the collaboration scores of pharmacy students significantly exceeded those of medical students, and that this difference persisted even though medical students' scores improved after participating in the workshop. The effect size for the difference between pharmacy and medical students' collaboration scores was of crucial practical importance.…”

Perceived Benefits and Challenges of Interprofessional Education Based on a Multidisciplinary Faculty Member Survey

“…6,8,[22][23][24] Previous studies indicated that medical students often express skepticism regarding the utility of IPE. [25][26] Effective engagement of students in IPE requires all stakeholders, especially those in medicine, to be involved.…”

“…While previous studies found lower levels of enthusiasm for IPE training among students in medicine relative to students in other health care programs, including pharmacy, limited data is available to describe actual faculty member opinions and sentiments for IPE among the various health care professions. 6,8,[19][20][21] This study was conducted to explicitly examine potential differences in faculty member attitudes toward and interest in IPE along with perceived barriers among faculty members from osteopathic medicine, pharmacy , and physician assistant programs.…”

“…By definition, any IPE initiative requires involvement and participation of multiple disciplines, so faculty members from these programs must be "on board." A search of literature revealed limited data on faculty member thoughts and sentiments towards IPE implementation, [19][20][21] even though student opinions are well documented, 6,8,11,12 often with medical students expressing lower levels of enthusiasm for IPE relative to students in other professions.…”

“…Prevalent examples of IPE include: working on interdisciplinary team-based patient cases or activities, rounding experiences, objective structured clinical exams (OSCEs), competitions, and outreach events. [3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11] While these IPE experiences are nonstandardized and site-dependent, the majority of them have shown positive effects on student attitudes toward interdisciplinary teamwork. [3][4][5][6][8][9][10][11][12] Similar to other health fields of study, US pharmacy programs have been charged with incorporating IPE into their curriculum.…”