The Optimal Time to Institute Interprofessional Education in the Medical School Curriculum

Abstract

Modern healthcare occurs in a dynamic and complex environment that requires providers to work together, collaborate, and quickly adapt to the continuously changing work environment. To prepare providers to meet these demands, practical healthcare and academia establish interprofessional education (IPE) opportunities for healthcare professions. Educational psychologists and philosophers who propone constructivism as a theory of learning argue that “each of us perceives the world through the prism of our own unique experience” (Jean Piaget, Lev Vygotsky, John Dewey, Jerome Bruner, and John Locke) that determines how ready we are to accept or reject given concepts or constructs. This makes the appropriate timing to institute IPE in healthcare curricula very important. No current literature in the realm of IPE collaboration has determined an ideal time to introduce IPE into health education (Curran et al. in J Interprof Care 24:41–52, 4). In our project, we have assessed where in the curriculum medical students had the most positive attitude toward IPE and, more importantly, when they were ready to learn from other healthcare professions, and when they were ready to teach the other professions. In addition, we examined potential confounding factors such as behavioral traits, medical specialty of preference, prior academic degree or working experience in another healthcare profession, amount of clinical experience, and previous IPE exposure. Since none of the existing instruments were suitable to achieve this goal, we developed a 27-item Academic Interprofessional Education Attitude Scale (AIPEAS) survey instrument. This instrument has been piloted and validated at the University of South Dakota Sanford School of Medicine (USD SSOM). At the time of the survey administration, there were 71 first-year, 61 second-year, 58 third-year, and 65 fourth-year students enrolled at USD SSOM. To enhance the response rate, the survey was administered in the last 2 weeks of November and first 2 weeks of December when students did not have major exams or clinical evaluations. One hundred thirty-five out of 254 students replied (135/254, 53.14% response rate), and their profiles closely represented the entire medical school student body. This study found that medical students younger than 25 years, who were females and were in the first or second year of medical school, had significantly more positive attitudes toward IPE. This discovery supported prior research findings conducted by other investigators (Pollard et al. Health Soc Care Community 12(4):346–58, 2004; Anderson and Thorpe J Interprof Care 22(3):263–82, 2008). Among all medical specialties, primary care and family medicine in particular, along with the group of undecided specialty, demonstrated the highest mean attitude toward IPE scores. These findings agree with the previous studies that showed correlation between medical specialties and personality traits (Borges and Osmon J Vocat Behav 58:22–35, 5). The University of South Dakota Sanford School of Medicine conducted a survey-based study to determine the best timing to institute interprofessional education in medical school curriculum. According to the obtained data, the majority of students responded that the first year of the medical school curriculum was the best time to initiate IPE. While the entire attitude toward IPE was positive, female students were more enthusiastic about it than their male counterparts. Also, students younger than 25 years had more positive attitudes toward IPE than their elder schoolmates. Since many healthcare accreditation agencies require students to be involved in the IPE activities throughout their educational curricula, this survey and its findings could be an important tool in designing such curricula (Dominguez et al. J Interprof Care 29:1–6, 2014).