Views from the field: Medical student experiences and perceptions of interprofessional learning and collaboration in rural settings

Abstract

Exploring the perceived environment where students are educated, as well as where they practice, is particularly important for educators and practitioners working in situations of interprofessional rural and remote health. In this study, we explored the perceptions of undergraduate medical students regarding interprofessionalism across their four-year undergraduate program which focuses on rural health. A thematic content analysis of the text-data was conducted on a convenience sample of 47 student responses to essay questions across four cohorts of a four-year undergraduate medical program. The medical program has an explicit social accountability mandate for responsiveness to the needs of a rural population and thus students have multiple opportunities to experience interprofessional education and collaboration in rural contexts. Participants reported (a) blurring and flexibility of roles in a primarily positive manner, (b) participating in unstructured interprofessional learning and collaboration, (c) experiencing the importance of social connections to interprofessional collaboration and learning, and (d) realisations that interprofessional collaboration is a means of overcoming barriers in rural areas. We discuss our findings using the socio-material perspective of complexity theory. These findings may be used to inform undergraduate programs in re-defining, re-creating, developing, and fostering interprofessional learning opportunities for medical students in rural communities as well as to support clinical faculty through ongoing professional development.

Does Online Interprofessional Case-Based Learning Facilitate Collaborative Knowledge Construction?

“… 32 Moreover, the findings also confirm that online learning environment was shown to facilitate small-group collaborative interactions and enable positive and novel forms of student interaction and facilitate student learning. 13 , 33 …”

Five years on: Influences on early career health professionals from a rural interprofessional pre‐registration immersion program

“…Some well‐known IPE program exceptions have included a 20‐year follow‐up in Linkoping, Sweden, 32 and a 4‐year follow‐up during training and extending into early postgraduate years in the United Kingdom, 33 where IPE has supported collaborative practice over time. Some longitudinal follow‐up of students from different disciplines completing rurally based IPE programs has been undertaken, for example reporting realisation of interprofessional collaboration as a means of overcoming barriers to rural health care, 34 but such studies are scarce.…”

Bedside Teaching in Rural Family Medicine Education in Japan

“…Professionalism should be enhanced by cognitive apprenticeship in bedside teaching. Professionalism is vital for learners to become true physicians but is difficult to teach [ 34 , 35 ]. Direct observations of learners and feedback on their behavior promotes the effective teaching of professionalism [ 2 ].…”