Impact of interprofessional training on medical students' willingness to accept clinical responsibility

Interprofessional training has been suggested as a means of preparing medical students for team health care, but the effects of such training have not been carefully studied. A multidisciplinary training programme in ambulatory diabetes care was developed to promote positive attitudes towards team care. Programme effects were assessed by a questionnaire which asked medical students to indicate their willingness to delegate or share 25 specific clinical tasks with a nurse. Following programme participation, students' willingness to share responsibility increased significantly for seven of the 25 tasks. To test the hypothesis that this effect resulted from the assignment of a teaching role to nurses, selected seminar content was taught by doctors or nurses on a random basis. No differences in willingness to share responsibility were related to which professional taught the seminar content. However, students were more willing to share responsibility with a nurse when they thought they had learned that topic from a nurse, suggesting that their experience in observing nurses at work may have been important in influencing attitudes towards team care.