Longitudinal Interprofessional Education in a Graduate Physiology Course

Abstract

The primary purpose of conducting two interprofessional education (IPE) experiences during the physiology graduate‐level course was to provide basic science (n=9), physical therapy (35), and physician assistant (30) graduate students with an opportunity to work as a team in the diagnosis, treatment, and collaborative care of a patient with acute kidney injury and a patient with female athlete triad. The secondary purpose was to enhance the understanding of basic physiology principles with patient case presentations of pathophysiology. The overall purpose was to assess the longitudinal effects and the value of IPE integration within a basic science course by examining student perceptions and program evaluation. The following Interprofessional Education Collaborative sub‐competencies were targeted: Values/Ethics (VE1), Roles/Responsibilities (RR1, RR4), Interprofessional Communication (CC4), and Teams and Teamwork (TT3). First the students engaged in the renal IPE learning experience, followed one month later by the endocrine IPE learning experience. Clinical and IPE stimulus questions were discussed both within and between teams with assistance provided by faculty facilitators. Students were given a pre‐ and post‐survey to determine their IPE perceptions and knowledge. The research portion was anonymous and was approved by the institutional review board at our institution (#9260). A Likert scale ranging from strongly disagree to strongly agree (1 to 5) was used to measure the responses from the IPE sub‐competencies and activity evaluation questions. Themes were determined and quantified for the open‐ended questions by LMHB or SE, and the number of correct responses for the roles of the healthcare students was quantified in a blinded fashion. There were statistically significant increases from pre‐survey renal IPE to pre‐survey endocrine IPE for two IPE questions regarding the ability to explain the roles and responsibilities of a physical therapist and physician assistant (p<0.05). The knowledge of the role of the physical therapist increased significantly when comparing the renal IPE pre‐survey to the endocrine IPE pre‐survey results (p<0.05). There was a significant increase in the mean Likert scores for the renal compared to the endocrine IPE post‐surveys for one of the questions, indicating that there was an increased participation by the team members on the second IPE experience. Therefore, the students carried knowledge learned during the first IPE to the second exposure of IPE. Incorporating multiple planned IPE experiences into multidisciplinary health science courses represents an appropriate venue to have students learn and apply interprofessional competencies.This abstract is from the Experimental Biology 2019 Meeting. There is no full text article associated with this abstract published in The FASEB Journal.