Education without walls: Using a street medicine program to provide real-world interprofessional learning

Interprofessional education (IPE) is a core component of the curricula for many healthcare and social work training programs and has been shown to increase student self-efficacy, communication skills, and attitudes toward other professions. Street medicine programs expand options for teaching interprofessional, team-based care of vulnerable populations, such as those experiencing homelessness. Street Medicine Phoenix is an interprofessional team of health professions students and faculty that provides outreach to Phoenix's homeless population. This study demonstrates the impact of volunteering in our street medicine program on the perceived development of interprofessional skills and behaviors. Volunteer teams, with representatives from medicine, nursing, social work, physical therapy, occupational therapy, public health, and undergraduate studies, completed the Interprofessional Collaborative Competencies Attainment Survey (ICCAS) before and after semester-long, monthly outreach events. Results demonstrate statistically significant improvements in overall ICCAS scores for all volunteers, but there was no relationship between number of shifts completed and ICCAS score improvement. Based on these findings, street medicine programs could be considered as an option for providing interprofessional learning to students in healthcare and social work degree programs. Street medicine outreach can supplement didactic and simulation skill-building activities in the IPE curricula with point of care, real-world experiential learning.