Development and implementation of an interprofessional education certificate program in a community-based osteopathic medical school

Abstract

Abstract Community-based medical schools face unique barriers in developing meaningful interprofessional education (IPE) opportunities for their students. Here we describe the development, implementation, and preliminary evaluation of an IPE Certificate Program at a community-based osteopathic medical school. The IPE Certificate Program was developed by incorporating new curricular components with pre-existing requirements to minimize the burden on students, administrators, and faculty. The IPE program is delivered longitudinally to medical students, in collaboration with pharmacy and nursing students, over three years using interactive, volunteer, clinical, and reflective experiences. The primary aims of the IPE Certificate Program are to promote interprofessionalism based on the Core Competencies for Interprofessional Practice and provide additional acknowledgment for the students that participate in the program. Student assessments are based on both participation and the use of standardized grading rubrics based on the various activities' learning objectives. The students' knowledge and attitudes regarding interprofessionalism is also assessed using an adapted survey, while the overall program is evaluated with an end-of-year program evaluation. Preliminary results of the attitudes survey display favorable changes towards interprofessionalism. Due to the overwhelming acceptance by students and the administration, the curriculum has transitioned to a for-credit elective course that will appear on the participants’ academic transcripts. The following resources are included: a course syllabus, the course requirements, a grading rubric, the attitudes towards interprofessionalism survey, and a course evaluation. We propose our model can be used to implement IPE at other community-based institutions.