Pharmacist trainees narrow scope of interprofessional collaboration and communication in hospital practice

Early curricular exposure to interprofessional education (IPE) is intended to acclimatize health professional trainees to shared-care in the practice settings they will ultimately join. However, IPE activities typically reside outside actual organizational and social systems in which interprofessional care is delivered. We aimed to explore how pharmacist trainees experience collaborator and communicator competency roles during team-based workplace-based learning. Participants maintained written diaries reflecting on interprofessional collaboration and communication during an eight-week hospital clerkship. Diary entries and transcripts from semi-structured follow-up interviews were analyzed from the social constructivist perspective using reflective thematic analysis. Participant accounts of on-ward activities represented most collaborator and communicator roles outlined in pharmacy and interprofessional competency frameworks, but were predominantly between the pharmacist trainee and physicians. Pharmacist trainees did not routinely engage with other health professions on a daily basis. Additionally, reported encounters with other team members were typically information exchanges and not episodes of authentic interdependent or shared care. Interactions were almost completely devoid of perceived interpersonal or role conflict. These findings offer insight into how pharmacist trainees perceive and develop competencies for team-based care. Further work is required to understand how such limited scope of interprofessional communication and collaboration might ultimately impair quality patient care.