Professional Behavior Assessment of Osteopathic Student Doctors by Diverse Healthcare Providers in the Rotational Setting
In educational settings, health profession students are expected to learn from each other through interprofessional education (IPE) initiatives. In the practice environment of healthcare, developing professional students are expected to practice collaboratively with other providers to achieve common goals to solve a variety of problems.Preparing students to work in complex healthcare environments calls for educational innovations to prepare for a collaborative workforce.
A cohort study used the Interprofessional Professional Assessment (IPA) tool to assess professional behaviors of third year Doctor of Osteopathy (DO) students by professionally diverse medical practitioners during one of the required clinical experience. Students in the Class of 2024 were oriented to the purpose and method of the study during their coursework. Students self-selected whom to share the link of the IPA tool using the electronic survey tool, Qualtrics®. Survey data was analyzed using Excel® for statistics.
Preliminary results demonstrate a variety of healthcare professionals engaged with 3rd year DO students during the clinical year including nursing, chiropractors, social workers, physical therapists, athletic trainers, dieticians, medical assistants and physician assistants, with nursing engaged with the most. Overall, students were assessed favorably in all areas with the strongest agreement in communicative behavior with 65% receiving a perfect score. Healthcare providers outside of medicine strongly agreed the majority of participants demonstrated interchange of thought, active listening skills, respectful dialogue, and responsive to questions posed by other members. The section of the tool titled as accountability revealed the largest areas of opportunity with low agreement to the questions of coordinating care with other health professions, reviewing relevant documentation from other professionals and contributing to decisions about patients regardless of hierarchy. These findings arose from a variety of providers with one qualitative comment expressing charting was not observed. This lack of visual collaboration may suggest the practice environment or the productivity payment structure in the environment creates difficult for various healthcare providers to collaborate.
Some third year students from one university demonstrated evidence of collaborative practice during third year clinical education with a variety of professionals using the IPA. General trends demonstrate communicative providers with an inability to demonstrate accountability between providers.
IPA allows advanced learners to transition from interprofessional education to collaborative practitioner. The assessment which takes place during clinical or experiential learning supports the theme of “The Classroom and Beyond”, as it begins to influence the behaviors in the healthcare workplace of advanced students preparing for Collaborative Practice.
