The Design and Impact of an Interprofessional Education Event Among Pharmacy and Nursing Students in Palliative Care-RnRx.

Nearly all reports of interprofessional education (IPE) in palliative care have excluded pharmacy students. This article describes an IPE event between pharmacy and nursing students and assesses its impact on IPE competencies. Second-year nursing students and third-year pharmacy students participated in an evening-long event, focused on a married couple who each require palliative care-one for end-of-life planning and one for chronic disease progression. The impact of the event was assessed using the Interprofessional Collaborative Competency Attainment Scale (ICCAS) and qualitative feedback. Two hundred nine (96.7%) completed the ICCAS, and 16 of the 20 statements of the ICCAS showed large positive effect sizes (Cohen d ≥ 0.8), with the remaining 4 showing moderate positive effect sizes (Cohen d ≥ 0.5). The greatest effect sizes were related to improved awareness of complementary skillsets and knowledge between the professions. Addressing team conflict and including the patient/family in decision-making showed the least improvement. While ongoing interactions are ideal for the development of skills related to conflict and team development, this article demonstrates that even a 1-time activity can have an impact on students' interprofessional care competence.

Evaluating Attitudes Toward Interprofessional Collaboration and Education Among Health Professional Learners.

BACKGROUND: An interprofessional education (IPE) workshop was established to enhance knowledge, skills, and attitudes for health professional learners to engage in interprofessional collaboration (IPC) through group-based activities. This study evaluates the IPC attitudes of learners following the IPE workshop. METHOD: Learner attitudes were measured pre- and post-workshop with the validated ICCAS survey for years 2017 and 2018. Areas such as communication and collaboration were assessed using a 7-point Likert scale ranging from strongly agree to strongly disagree. RESULTS: 161/420 (38%) and 399/446 (89%) of surveys were completed in 2017 and 2018. Median scores were significantly higher post-workshop for both years (p < 0.001). Pre-test differences were observed between Medicine and Pharmacy in both years and post-test differences between Optometry and Nursing in 2018. CONCLUSION: Positive outcomes are being observed among learners through IPC educational events. Further research is required to determine whether such activities promote IPC in future practice.

Impact and Attitudes about Peer Review of Teaching in a Canadian Pharmacy School.

Objective. To evaluate attitudes toward peer review of teaching and its impact on teaching practices and perceptions. Methods. The University of Waterloo School of Pharmacy implemented a peer-review process for its teaching program in 2015. Those reviewed were invited to complete an electronic survey that captured their attitudes toward teaching, attitudes toward peer review, and changes in teaching practices, and to participate in semi-structured follow-up interviews for more in-depth discussion of these issues. Results. Twenty-six (76%) instructors completed the survey. Instructors agreed that peer reviews of teaching are a development opportunity (96%), and 73% were comfortable with the idea of peer review. Over half (58%) indicated that the review made them feel more confident that their teaching strategies were effective, and the same percentage indicated that they planned to make changes to their teaching as a result of the feedback received from the peer review. Only a few instructors indicated that peer review changed their attitudes toward teaching (12%) or increased the value they placed on teaching (34%). Eight instructors (23.5%) participated in the semi-structured interviews. Themes that emerged included: attempts to make the reviewee comfortable during the peer review were successful; the feedback provided to instructors regarding their teaching was positive but not critical enough; there was lack of clarity as to the purpose of the feedback; and instructors planned to make only minor changes to their teaching as a result of the review. Conclusion. Peer review of teaching was well received and feedback was confirmatory in nature but had minimal impact on teaching practices as it was not deemed to be critical enough. Changes to the peer review program are needed to increase its impact on teaching practices.

Addressing professionalism in both formative and summative simulated patient care activities - Experiences with a discretionary deduction approach.

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: Encouraging and assessing professionalism among pharmacy students can be challenging. While non-punitive approaches are preferred as part of professional socialization, our program found this insufficient to ensure professional behaviour, especially during ungraded simulation lab activities. EDUCATIONAL ACTIVITY AND SETTING: In Winter 2015, we included a discretionary grade deduction within the assessments applied to a professional practice lab course in order to provide both intrinsic and extrinsic motivation to follow lab policies on professionalism. FINDINGS: A professionalism code was developed and discussed with students, and was also used as a template to guide professional behaviour throughout the course. Students not exhibiting these behaviours in lab could be subject to up to a five percent deduction from their final course grade at the instructor's discretion. DISCUSSION: Instructors considering this strategy are encouraged to introduce it in the first year of the program to ensure consistent expectations throughout the duration of students' training, and to not determine the magnitude of deductions applied until the end of the semester to ensure consistency and consideration of ongoing behaviour. Documentation of actions leading to deductions should be kept to support the decision. SUMMARY: A deduction-only approach to address unprofessional behaviours in addition to discussion offers additional motivation to students to exhibit professionalism across both graded and ungraded educational activities with minimal additional workload for instructors. The strategy has since been adopted across all lab courses in our program and has also been recommended in lecture-based courses.

Interprofessional education day - an evaluation of an introductory experience for first-year students.

Interprofessional health care teams have been shown to improve patient safety and reduce medical errors, among other benefits. Introducing interprofessional concepts to students in full day events is an established model that allows students to learn together. Our group developed an academic day for first-year students devoted to an introductory interprofessional education (IPE) experience, 'IPE Day'. In total, 438 students representing medicine, dentistry, pharmacy and optometry gathered together, along with 25 facilitators, for IPE Day. Following the day's program, students completed the evaluation consisting of the Interprofessional Collaborative Competencies Attainment Survey and open-ended questions. Narrative responses were analyzed for content and coded using the Canadian Interprofessional Health Collaborative competency domains. Three hundred and eight evaluations were completed. Students reported increased self-ratings of competency across all 20 items (p < 0.05). Their comments were organized into the six domains: interprofessional communication, collaborative leadership, role clarification, patient-centred care, conflict resolution, and team functioning. Based on these findings, we suggest that this IPE activity may be useful for improving learner perceptions about their interprofessional collaborative practice competence.