How can student experience enhance the development of a model of interprofessional clinical skills education in the practice placement setting?

Abstract

The practice placement setting offers opportunities and challenges for engaging students in high-quality interprofessional learning. The Fife Interprofessional Clinical Skills Model for Education was established to develop structured interprofessional learning opportunities for students during their clinical attachments in NHS Fife. This short report describes the delivery and evaluation of the model, which was piloted with students from the nursing, medicine and allied health professions. Scheduled workshops were delivered within primary and secondary care locations. The learning activities involved exploring and comparing their professional identities, discussing roles and responsibilities within the healthcare team and practicing nontechnical clinical skills. Students who participated in the workshops reported that they developed a better understanding of each other's roles and responsibilities and also identified that this would be transferable knowledge to their future practice. Exploring the student experience has assisted in developing relevant and accessible interprofessional learning opportunities within the practice placement setting.

Keywords::

• Qualitative method
• interprofessional education
• interprofessional evaluation
• interprofessional learning
• interprofessional outcomes
• work-based learning

Acknowledgements

The authors are also grateful to the staff in NHS Fife for their input into the design and facilitation of the sessions.

Declaration of interest

The authors thank the Universities which supported the project, NHS Education for Scotland, NHS Tayside, NHS Fife and the IPCSE project board for support and guidance. The authors report no conflicts of interest. The authors alone are responsible for the content and writing of the paper.