Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2024 Dec 30;24(1):1556.
doi: 10.1186/s12909-024-06590-w.

Exploring perceptions of medical students about interprofessional education (IPE): a qualitative study

Ying Xing  1   2 , Chengrui Zhang  2 , Tao Jin  3 , Wei Luan  4
Affiliations

Exploring perceptions of medical students about interprofessional education (IPE): a qualitative study

Ying Xing et al. BMC Med Educ. .

Abstract

Background: Integration of clinical medicine and other subjects has laid more emphasis on the cultivation of high-quality medical talents, with the increasing demand for interprofessional education (IPE). IPE has been promoted by a number of universities to create and sustain authentic IPE activities, with which students can engage. Although IPE has achieved certain results, there are still many problems. Many studies focused on the perspective of educators without understanding the essential needs and experience of students. This study intends to focus on the implementation of IPE from the perspective of medical students.

Purpose: To describe the interprofessional experiences of medical students and provide a reference for the development of interprofessional education programs for medical students.

Methods: A descriptive qualitative study was conducted in 2023, using purposive sampling to select medical students who had interprofessional learning experiences for semi-structured interviews. The study used a phenomenological approach and Colaizzi's phenomenological method for analyzing and summarizing the interprofessional experiences and perceptions to extract themes.

Results: The interprofessional experiences of medical students were distilled into five themes: "cognition and attitude", "practice and collaboration", "motivation and drive", "difficulty and challenge", and "expectation and vision". Students reported their experience and found interprofessional learning beneficial for broadening their horizon and building harmonious healthcare teams. Based on the experience of interprofessional learning, students also put forward expectations and ideas for IPE especially for medical students.

Conclusion: Each institution should establish a complete interprofessional education system in accordance with the professional education system of students, to achieve interprofessional education for medical students that adapts to the national conditions of China, and to better improve the overall quality of future medical service teams, to achieve patient-centered high-quality care experience.

Trial registration: Not applicable.

Keywords: Interprofessional collaboration; Interprofessional education; Medical education; Medical students.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

Declarations. Ethical approval: Ethical approval was granted by Shuguang Hospital Affiliated to Shanghai University of TCM (SGYYIIT-2024-048). All participants were informed that their participation was voluntary and anonymous, and that non-participation would not cause them harm. The work was carried out in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki. Consent for publication: Our study obtained written informed consent from all participants. Competing interests: The authors declare no competing interests.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Process of thematic analysis (Theme 1)
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Similar articles

See all similar articles

References

    1. Ateah CA, et al. Stereotyping as a barrier to collaboration: does interprofessional education make a difference? Nurse Educ Today. 2011;31(2):208–13. - PubMed
    1. Wong PS, Chen YS, Saw PS. Influencing factors and processes of interprofessional professional education (IPE) implementation. Med Teach. 2021;43(sup1):S39–45. - PubMed
    1. Awan AA, et al. Integrating an interprofessional education initiative: evidence from King Abdulaziz University. Med Teach. 2018;40(sup1):S15–21. - PubMed
    1. Zanotti R, Sartor G, Canova C. Effectiveness of interprofessional education by on-field training for medical students, with a pre-post design. BMC Med Educ. 2015;15:121. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Kent F, Keating J. Patient outcomes from a student-led interprofessional clinic in primary care. J Interprof Care. 2013;27(4):336–8. - PubMed

LinkOut - more resources