Cultivating Collaboration: An Interprofessional Collaboration Skills Curriculum for Early Medical Students in Clinical Microsystems

While interprofessional education (IPE) traditionally focuses on the interactions of students of different professions and is often based in the classroom or simulated settings, embedding students in interprofessional (IP) teams of practicing professionals in clinical settings may also provide rich opportunities for both formal and informal IP learning.

In the UCSF Clinical Microsystems Clerkship, groups of six first-year medical students are assigned to a faculty coach and clinical microsystem for 17 months, where they participate one half-day per week to learn patient care skills, interprofessional teamwork, and systems improvement. We created a longitudinal IP curriculum embedded in the clinical microsystem that encompasses a series of activities intended to
1) increase student knowledge of roles/responsibilities of healthcare professionals and
2) foster student IP collaboration skills.

We also developed a series of assessments to assess students’ interprofessional collaboration skills via:
1) a multisource feedback survey,
2) written application of an IP communication tool, and
3) simulated IP interaction with a standardized social worker.

In this lightning talk, we will describe the longitudinal IP curriculum, the assessment tools we developed and the outcomes and lessons learned that will directly address strategies for optimizing the IP clinical learning environment. What the audience will learn from this talk: We will share with the audience the lessons learned from our 3-year experience implementing the interprofessional curriculum in the Clinical Microsystems Clerkship, including some of the strengths and limitations of our approach and plans for future improvements.