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AN INTERPROFESSIONAL TRAINING WARD AND ITS BENEFIT FOR PHARMACY STUDENTS

European Statement

Education and Research

Author(s)

Dückelmann Christina C., Landwehr Frauke

Why was it done?

According to the World Health Organization, interprofessional education and collaborative practice are leading to improved health outcomes. Interprofessional education occurs when students from two or more professions learn about, from and with each other to enable effective collaboration and improve health outcomes.

What was done?

A cohort of two medical and two pharmacy students as well as four nursing trainees were selected to take over ward mangement and patient care for up to four real patients in a real hospital setting during a five weeks´ period. They were supervised by experienced professionals who “sit on their hands and look out of the window” only interfering when patients are endangered or situations are getting risky for patients.

How was it done?

To find out what the benefit was for pharmacy students, all six of them that where included in this year´s interprofessional wards on a cardiology and a neurology department, were interviewed using guided, problem-centred interviews. Their experiences were qualitatively explored and evaluated with regard to structure, supervsion, feedback and interprofessionality of this training.

What has been achieved?

Pharmacy students reported that the current structure, supervision and feedback enabled them to learn clinical pharmacy in a very profound way. On the other hand, it made other health care professionals aware of how they could benefit from clinical pharmacists and what the role of clinical pharmacists really is. The experience of being responsible for patients together with medical students and nursing trainees in this interprofessional setting was extremely helpful for their learning success and made them realize which influence on patients´ outcome working together in a team like that could have.

What next?

The Interprofessional Training Ward will be continued and rolled out on further departments of the hospital. In 2025, the surgery department will be part of the project. There, clinical pharmacists are badly needed. This qualitative research revealed the potential for further optimization of this programme in order to meet the learning objectives and expectations of the students even better. This will be aimed for in the next interprofessional training wards.

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