Clinical supervisors’ experiences of using an interprofessional clinical supervision model in an acute care setting

ABSTRACT

Often, students converge on the acute healthcare setting in professional silos, focusing solely on key learning objectives specific to their profession. The use of an Interprofessional Clinical Supervision (IPCS) model may enable students from medicine, nursing, pharmacy, and allied health to develop profession-specific skills, provide opportunities to improve communication skills within an interprofessional team and enhance student understanding of other health professionals’ contributions to care delivery. Clinical supervision of these students within an IPCS model presents a number of logistical and interprofessional challenges. Through the use of two semi-structured group interviews, we sought to understand interprofessional clinical supervisors’ (n = 4) perspective of implementing the IPCS model. Thematic analysis revealed emerging themes of planning, interprofessional supervisor utilization, role clarity and perceived professional limitations from the data. This study found that the IPCS model can provide an innovative alternative to traditional profession specific supervision models and interprofessional education activities, particularly given the climate of increasing student numbers and reduced resources.

KEYWORDS:

• Interprofessional education
• clinical supervision
• supervisor
• team supervision
• qualitative research
• interviews

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank Melanie Barlow and Mater Education for their support during the project, and participating students from the various universities across southeast Queensland. Queensland Regional Training Network’s Clinical Supervision and Support Program provided funding for this project.

Declaration of interest

The authors report no conflicts of interest. The authors alone are responsible for the content and writing of the paper.