Attaining interprofessional competencies through a student interprofessional fellowship program

For students interested in enriching their interprofessional competencies beyond those required and offered by their academic programs, an elective interprofessional education fellowship can serve that need. We designed a fellowship for students linking a conceptual framework grounded in adult learning principles. During the fellowship, students progress through three levels of learning as they acquire, apply, and demonstrate interprofessional collaborative knowledge and skills; fellowship activities are self-directed. A content analysis of students' fellowship summary reports sought to determine the effectiveness of the fellowship as a learning experience to acquire interprofessional collaborative competences. Results indicated that students most consistently report competencies associated with acquisition of values and ethics for interprofessional practice, roles/responsibilities, and teams/teamwork; interprofessional communication was implied. All students expressed commitment to interprofessional collaborative behavior when in practice. Based on the results from this study, this fellowship structure may serve as a model for other institutions to adapt and implement for best practice and best fit.