Interprofessional workshop to improve mutual understanding between pharmacy and medical students

Abstract

Objective. To measure changes in pharmacy and medical students' physician-pharmacist collaboration scores resulting from a workshop designed to promote understanding of the others' roles in health care. Methods. More than 88% of first-year pharmacy (n 5 215) and medical (n 5 205) students completed the Scale of Attitudes Toward Physician-Pharmacist Collaboration on 3 occasions in order to establish a baseline of median scores and to determine whether the scores were influenced by an interprofessional workshop. Results. Participation in the interprofessional workshop increased pharmacy students' collaboration scores above baseline (p=0.02) and raised the scores of medical students on the education component of the collaboration survey instrument (p=0.015). The collaboration scores of pharmacy students greatly exceeded those of medical students (p<0.0001). Conclusion. A workshop designed to foster interprofessional understanding between pharmacy and medical students raised the physician-pharmacist collaboration scores of both. Crucial practical goals for the future include raising the collaboration scores of medical students to those of pharmacy students.