Junior doctors' experiences with interprofessional collaboration: Wandering the landscape.

Area of Science:

• Medical Education
• Healthcare Professional Development
• Qualitative Research

Background:

• The transition from medical student to junior doctor presents significant challenges.
• Junior doctors must integrate into physician communities of practice (CoP) while navigating new responsibilities and interprofessional landscapes.
• Understanding junior doctors' experiences with interprofessional collaboration (IPC) during this critical transition is essential.

Purpose of the Study:

• To explore how junior doctors experience interprofessional collaboration (IPC).
• To identify factors shaping junior doctors' IPC experiences during their transition to clinical practice.

Main Methods:

• A multicentre qualitative study involving 13 junior doctors.
• Participants created "rich pictures" depicting positive and negative IPC experiences.
• Semi-structured interviews and inductive thematic analysis of visual and textual data.

Main Results:

• Junior doctors primarily identify with the physician community of practice, shaping their professional identity.
• Interprofessional learning is often implicit, leading to professional isolation and difficulties in understanding other healthcare professionals' roles.
• This isolation impedes the development of integrative interprofessional collaboration.

Conclusions:

• Interprofessional collaboration (IPC) learning should be a collective and explicit goal, utilizing multisource feedback.
• Junior doctors require a safe environment with experienced facilitators to reflect on interprofessional interactions and emotions.
• Integrating junior doctors effectively requires fostering a shared understanding across the interprofessional landscape.