Getting Health Professions Learners on the Same Page: Shared Mental Models to Support Clinical Teamwork

By: Leslie Carstensen Floren, PharmD, MA L.C. Floren is associate professor, Department of Bioengineering and Therapeutic Sciences, School of Pharmacy, University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), and a current student in Health Professions Education in the Utrecht University-UCSF doctoral program. A few years ago, I started to become keenly interested in interprofessional (IP) education, and I helped to develop and implement an IP workshop on medication safety. Together, small groups of third-year pharmacy and first-year medical students would role-play clinical cases, taking turns to interview and conduct a medication reconciliation for their “patients.” On several occasions during these sessions, I observed medical students asking the pharmacy learners questions that were focused mostly on dispensing (available drug strengths, normal doses, etc.), but they had few inquiries regarding drug interactions, management of side effects, or patient education. Not surprisingly, these medical students, still early on in their training, seemed to hold a somewhat narrow view of the pharmacist’s role. At the same time, I began to think about how these learners from different backgrounds would likely only have limited exposure to one another through a series of IP workshops over the next few years. And, I began to wonder how our health-professionals-in-training would be able to develop the shared understandings necessary for effective collaborative work if they held limited con...
Source: Academic Medicine Blog - Category: Universities & Medical Training Authors: Tags: Featured Guest Perspective clinical teamwork health professions education interprofessional education shared mental models Source Type: blogs