The patient´s role in undergraduate health students' interprofessional clinical placements

Abstract

Changed demographics and the prevalence of chronic, non-communicable, and infectious diseases create challenges in healthcare - lack of resources forces a transition from one-to-one to team-based approaches. Health professional education must prepare undergraduates for collaborative practice to ensure a collaborative-ready workforce that involves the patient as a partner. Interprofessional education (IPE) is an approach where students from two or more professions learn about, with, and from each other; patient-centeredness is essential. Interprofessional clinical placements are fruitful for interprofessional learning and how to integrate the patient's perspective into teamwork, yet are insufficiently explored. The study is based on three papers and explores what happens when health professional students undertake an interprofessional clinical placement together and the role of the patient in such a learning arrangement.

Data was generated through multiple methods; A scoping review, participant observations inspired by a focused ethnographic approach, and qualitative interviews. Data were analyzed following the principles of reflexive thematic analysis.

Reviewing 73 articles, paper 1 identifies how patients need to be more included in research on interprofessional education in clinical placements. Paper 2 shows how the patient is the center of attention in interprofessional student teams’ work and learning process. Despite this, the patients do not always feel included when encountered by interprofessional student teams. In paper 3, preliminary findings show that supervisors are often absent in interprofessional student teams’ interactions with patients. The supervision of interprofessional student teams seems to have foci on the core competencies in interprofessional learning, not including the patient perspective.

The dissertation provides insight into patient involvement in IPE and interprofessional clinical placements. Our findings suggest a taken-for-grantedness when looking at former research and empirical findings. Higher education institutions must be concerned about facilitating students to learn how to involve patients in interprofessional learning activities. Facilitating learning for interprofessional students must emphasize the importance of the patient and clarify how this can be enacted in encounters with patients. The latter also includes ensuring competent supervisors in interprofessional clinical placements.