Reflective entries to understand the learning of interprofessionalism during clinical practicum: A phenomenological study

Abstract

Interprofessional practice (IPP) in health care has the potential to decrease medical errors and increase the standard of care for all individuals. The World Health Organization (WHO) (1988) published a report calling for reorganization of health care practice, twenty years later, WHO (2010) published a framework for advancing interprofessional education (IPE) for healthcare practice. The report sparked a number of interest and publications on the introduction of an IPE curriculum to health care students. To date, there is a scarcity of evaluative data that connects the IPE to the learning and development of interprofessional practice (IPP) for prelicensure students and as they become graduates. This phenomenological study examined the experiences of interprofessionalism of prelicensure students, during their clinical practicum through their reflection. There were three consenting participants from radiation therapy completing the study, where they were first individually interviewed prior to entry into the clinical practicum, and then near completion. Additionally, the participants submitted weekly reflections during their placement. I utilized an interpretative phenomenological analysis approach for the idiographic analysis, then a broadened analysis across the participants to identify shared themes. The findings aligned with the literature and allowed the participants to share what they learned from interprofessional education, how they learned interprofessional practice, and how reflection contributed to their learning. The findings suggest that for a critical mass of health care professional graduates to develop and realize effective collaborative practice, there should be more attention provided to developing reflective attitudes, the learning environment, and the resulting organizational culture. This was a small exploratory study with limitations, however; there are indications for more research with an increased number of participants across multi professions to enable a firm understanding of the requirements to strengthen the bridge between interprofessional education and practice.