Interprofessional education and student understanding of their future roles and responsibilities as health professionals

Research Objectives: To investigate student perceptions regarding their own roles/responsibilities on healthcare teams, as well as those of other professions, and explore ways to improve interprofessional education (IPE) courses for health professions students.

Design: Volunteer health professions students participated in online focus group sessions and were asked a series of structured, open-ended questions regarding their profession’s roles/responsibilities on a healthcare team, as well as those of other professionals. Responses were transcribed for qualitative analysis by two independent coders who extracted major themes and subthemes.

Setting: Four online Microsoft Teams focus group sessions

Participants: Undergraduate and graduate health professions students who previously participated in an IPE workshop.

Interventions: Not applicable

Main Outcome Measures: Themes and subthemes obtained from student answers to focus group questions

Results: Five major themes were constant among focus group sessions: (1) Learning and Roles, (2) Team-based care, (3) Personal voice, (4) Logistics, and (5) Resolutions. Numerous sub-themes emerged, including integration of roles, sharing responsibility, and respect for individual roles, among others.

Conclusions: Rehabilitation medicine is a diverse and integrated field. Integrated care can improve patient outcomes. IPE enables students to understand their professional roles and limits on healthcare teams, as well as respect and appreciate the roles and responsibilities of others on the team. Students enjoy collaborating as a team to provide patient care. Feedback centered on ensuring equal opportunity among professions to share and contribute, standardizing roles of group facilitators, and providing preparatory materials prior to IPE workshops can allow students to maximize their contributions to the group.

Author(s) Disclosures: No disclosures to report.