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Improving Interprofessional Competencies and Anatomy Education of Health Profession Students in a Virtual Platform
Author(s) -
Parker Morgan,
Sakaguchi Alan,
Sisson Craig,
Grice Kimatha,
Paquette Roland,
Kar Rekha
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
the faseb journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.709
H-Index - 277
eISSN - 1530-6860
pISSN - 0892-6638
DOI - 10.1096/fasebj.2021.35.s1.03571
Subject(s) - interprofessional education , medical education , health professions , psychology , medicine , anatomy , health care , political science , law
Currently, most interprofessional education (IPE) opportunities occur in a clinical setting during professional practice despite increased efforts to include them in health profession curriculums. Students get very little exposure to IPE competencies and the curricula continues to be carried out largely in school‐specific silos. Clinically relevant problems such as the detection of the Persistent Median Artery (PMA) and its possible contribution to Carpal Tunnel Syndrome (CTS) and other forearm/hand disabilities may require interprofessional collaboration from students in medical (MED), occupational therapy (OT), and physician assistant (PA) programs to improve patient outcomes in their future health profession careers. We hypothesized that basic anatomy education, exposure to IPE competencies and hand sensibility testing (HST) can be performed effectively in a virtual platform to promote IPE and increase student awareness of a vascular anomaly, PMA, that may contribute to CTS. Select cohorts of MED, OT, and PA students were recruited to form student IPE healthcare teams after receiving IRB approval for this study. Student volunteers participated in this study over Zoom sessions. All student volunteers completed pre‐training and post‐training assessments to measure the effectiveness of the didactic aspects of training and attainment of IPE competencies. Student IPE teams were assigned to work on a clinical scenario and were encouraged to take advantage of each team member's professional expertise, training and knowledge to determine a likely diagnosis and possible clinical treatments for the hypothetical patient. Preliminary data show an increase in student‐perceptions on 16 of the 26 statements related to the IPE core competencies. 100% of students felt that participation in this project increased their knowledge of CTS. 74% of students strongly agreed that they could contribute to an informed differential diagnosis appropriate to the clinical scenario by integrating the knowledge and experience of members of their interprofessional team. 67% agreed or strongly agreed that participation in the activity increased their awareness about the importance of cultural competency in patient care. Correct student responses to the anatomy and training questions increased from the pre‐ to post‐ assessment in most of the questions asked. Student participation in IPE healthcare teams promoted and encouraged the effective practice of IPE core competencies. In addition, this IPE activity in a virtual platform also promoted an understanding of HST and awareness about the PMA and its possible role in CTS.