Caring through uncertainty: Health professionals' perspectives on contributing to medical students' workplace...

There is valuable learning embedded in interprofessional interactions that helps shape how medical students become physicians on health-care teams. However, little is known about the perspectives of these other health professionals (OHPs) on when and how they impact medical students' workplace learning. This study explores how OHPs approach interacting with medical students and how they view their contributions to students' workplace learning.

Using constructivist grounded theory methodology, researchers conducted 20 semi-structured interviews with nurses, nurse practitioners, pharmacists, physician assistants, and social workers at four hospital systems affiliated with one medical school. Interview data were iteratively collected and analysed between June and December 2025 to generate a conceptual understanding of OHPs' perspectives on how their workplace interactions with medical students contribute to students' learning. Researchers refined this understanding through sensitising concepts from ethics of care theory.

OHP participants described uncertainties about their role in medical student training and about students' learning needs that contrasted with the certainty they felt around their responsibilities to patients. Amid uncertainties about medical student training, OHPs focused on the discernible student and patient needs they felt comfortable addressing. OHPs acted on what they perceived students needed as humans, seeking to alleviate students' struggles to belong in clinical spaces. Guided by what OHPs believed patients needed from future physicians, OHPs also sought to shape students' future practice to be holistic and collaborative.

OHPs aimed to foster students' belonging and encourage holistic, collaborative practice despite feeling uncertain about whether or how to contribute to training medical students. These findings suggest opportunities to bolster the inclusion and credibility of OHPs in workplace learning while preserving their distinct perspectives on training physicians and the physician profession.