Medicine Pharmacy Interprofessional Exercise Pilot: Lessons Learned

This article was migrated. The article was marked as recommended. The Association of American Medical Colleges and the American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy with leaders of other health professions formed the Interprofessional Education Collaborative (IPEC) in 2009. Interprofessional education (IPE) is now a component of accreditation standards for academic programs in both medicine and pharmacy. While geographically separated, the Medical College of Georgia (Augusta University) and the College of Pharmacy (University of Georgia) have over 40 year history of collaboration but never intentionally added joint curricular offerings.To address IPE competencies, we developed and evaluated a medicine pharmacy collaborative exercise. Specifically, to compare the attitudes and perception toward interprofessional education and practice of students from two disciplines. An observational cross sectional study with 208 third year medical (M3) students and 108 third year pharmacy (P3) students was conducted in two consecutive academic years. Groups consisted of 6-8 M3 and 3-4 P3 students from all campuses across the state. The M3 student was to choose a patient they had seen who was taking at least 3 prescription medications. Objectives for students were to discuss the case (medications, side effects, cost, pharmacogenetics, drug-drug interactions, and cost effectiveness). A report of M3-P3 findings was to be submitted for grading by the Pharmacy faculty. Once the exercises were completed surveys were distributed and the de-identified data was analyzed in relation to IPEC competencies. The study was conducted in one academic year and 316 responses were obtained. Within medical students 48.2 % agreed and 21.2 % strongly agreed to consult with Pharm D in the future. Perception of leadership in the groups was shifted more toward pharmacy students (56.5% vs. 27.4%, p<0.0001). Students confidence in working with other professionals was improved more for pharmacy students than medical students (50.0% in P3 and 30.2% in M3 p =0.0014). Communication skills improved more in P3 than M3 (48.2% in P3 and 28.3% in M3, p=0.0043). More research is needed on equal adoption of IPE by medical and pharmacy students. Emphasis should be made on equal state of training (theory vs. clinical) on both sides with focus on working as a team and value of each team member. More direct involvement in patient care is needed with both M3 and P3 having face to face contact with patients and each other.