Interprofessional experiences to bridge the medical school to residency transition: a pilot program

ABSTRACT

Interprofessional experiences during medical school are often delivered during pre-clinical years, but less is known about the value of clinical students. Our institution implemented a specialty-specific interprofessiona curriculum during Residency Preparation Courses (RPCs) for senior students including didactics, clinical experiences, and a simulated paging curriculum. Our aim was to determine whether this intervention improved perceptions of interprofesiona roles. We distributed anonymous surveys before (pre-survey) and after (post-survey, collected within 2 weeks of course completion) the RPC to 90 students with questions related to interprofessional roles using a 5-point scale (1 = strongly disagree, 5 = strongly agree). Three months after the start of residency, we sent follow-up surveys inquiring about the usefulness of RPC components (1 = not at all useful, 5 = extremely useful). Response rates were 84.4% pre-survey, 63.3% post-survey, and 41.1% follow-up survey. Post-surveys indicated improvement in self-reported ability in all domains: understanding one’s contributions to interprofessional teams (3.9 to 4.4, p < .0001), understanding other team members’ contributions (3.9 to 4.4, p < .0001), learning from interprofessional team members (4.2 to 4.6, p = .0002), accounting for interprofessional perspectives (4.2 to 4.6, p < .0001), and co-developing effective care plans (3.9 to 4.4, p < .0001). Follow-up surveys rated clinical experiences as slightly-to-moderately useful (2.3 ± 1.0) and paging curriculum very-to-extremely useful (4.3 ± 1.0). This study demonstrates the value of interprofessional education for advanced students.

KEYWORDS:

• Interprofessional education
• transition to residency
• medical education continuum
• medical education
• internship
• residency

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Prior presentation

Virtual Poster presentation at Learn Serve Lead 2020: The AAMC Annual Meeting.

Additional information

Funding

The author(s) reported that there is no funding associated with the work featured in this article.

Notes on contributors

Elizabeth K. Jones

Elizabeth K Jones, MD is a Clinical Assistant Professor in the Department of Family Medicine, University of Michigan Medical School; Ann Arbor, MI.

Helen K Morgan

Helen K Morgan, MD is a Clinical Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology and Clinical Professor of Learning Health Sciences, University of Michigan Medical School; Ann Arbor, MI.

Brittany B. Allen

Brittany B Allen, MD is a Clinical Assistant Professor in the Department of Pediatrics, University of Michigan Medical School; Ann Arbor, MI.

J Thomas Fitzgerald

J Thomas Fitzgerald, PhD is a Professor Emeritus of Learning Health Sciences, University of Michigan Medical School; Ann Arbor, MI.

David T. Hughes

David T Hughes, MD is a Clinical Associate Professor in the Department of Surgery, University of Michigan Medical School; Ann Arbor, MI.

Jacob A. Mack

Jacob Mack, MD is a Clinical Assistant Professor in the Department of Internal Medicine, University of Michigan Medical School; Ann Arbor, MI.

Anita Malone

Anita Malone, MD is a Clinical  Assistant Professor in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, University of Michigan Medical School; Ann Arbor, MI.

William J. Peterson

William J Peterson, MD is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Emergency Medicine, University of Michigan Medical School; Ann Arbor, MI.

Jocelyn H. Schiller

Jocelyn H Schiller, MD is a Clinical Professor of Pediatrics, University of Michigan Medical School; Ann Arbor, MI.

Lauren A. Heidemann

Lauren A Heidemann, MD is a Clinical Associate Professor in the Department of Internal Medicine, University of Michigan Medical School; Ann Arbor, MI.