Enacting simulation: A sociomaterial perspective on students’ interprofessional collaboration

ABSTRACT

Full-scale simulation exercises are becoming more common as an educational feature of the undergraduate training of health professionals. This study explores how interprofessional collaboration is enacted by the participating students. Practice theory is used as the theoretical framework for a field study of two naturalistic educational settings, when medical and nursing students come together to practice in a simulated emergency situation, where a manikin is replacing the patient. Eighteen sessions of simulations were observed, and data were collected through standardised video recordings that were analysed collaboratively. To ensure transparency and scientific rigour, a stepwise constant comparative analysis was conducted, in which individual observations within and across single video recordings were compared, negotiated and eventually merged. The findings show that the student teams relate to the manikin as a technical, medical, and human body, and that interprofessional knowings and enactments emerge as a fluid movement between bodily positioning in synchrony and bodily positioning out of synchrony in relation to the sociomaterial arrangements. The findings are related to contemporary theorisations of practice comprising an integrated view of body and mind, and it is discussed how the findings can be used in simulation exercises to support participants’ learning in new ways.

KEYWORDS:

• Healthcare
• interprofessional collaboration
• learning
• practice theory
• qualitative video analysis
• simulation education

Acknowledgements

The authors wish to thank the Swedish Research Council for funding of the SIMIPL project, and the partners at Göteborg University and the Karolinska Institutet for collecting and sharing the data analysed in this article. We would also like to acknowledge Dr. Nick Hopwood, University of Technology, Sydney, for acting as a critical friend, particularly for his input to the analysis and graphical presentation of our findings.

Declaration of interest

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