Transforming nursing education: Development and evaluation of interprofessional clinical skills training for students on clinical placement

Abstract

Interprofessional education is viewed as necessary for students in disciplines such as medicine, nursing and allied health in preparation for the real world of collaborative practice. We describe the development, implementation and evaluation of a suite of interprofessional education sessions that were delivered to students in six pre-registration healthcare courses. While on clinical placement, students attended face to face interprofessional clinical education sessions. Interprofessional workshops, seminars, simulation education sessions and tutorials were conducted by clinical educators in addition to other on-site experiential learning. Student surveys (n = 746) and several interviews provided feedback. Students were enthusiastic about learning with other disciplines and gave positive feedback about interactive learning (98% were satisfied). They described knowledge improvement, better understanding of the roles and practices of others, as well as effective teaching strategies. Difficulties occurred in pairing students from more than one discipline to situate them together, because of unequal numbers and scheduling of placement dates. The current model, however, where IPL is delivered to students of multiple disciplines on the clinical placement sites is feasible, practical and desirable. Further work is needed to embed this teaching and learning model in curricula and to develop objective performance assessment.